CHAPTER IV
Fighting the Apaches and the Sioux
At last the days at West Point were ended and the class of '86 was to take its place with others in the wide, wide world. To young Pershing fell the lot to be assigned to the Sixth Cavalry in the southwest, where General Miles, the successor of General Crook, was soon to bring the war against the Apaches to an end. He was then a second lieutenant.
The wily and daring leader of the redmen was commonly known as Geronimo, a medicine man and prophet of the Chiricahuas. Strictly speaking, the Indian's true name was Goyathlay, "one who yawns," but the Mexicans had nicknamed him Geronimo—the Spanish for Jerome.
This Indian was born about 1834, near the headquarters of the Gila River, in New Mexico. He was the son of Taklishim, "The Gray One." Neither the father nor the son was a chief, although Geronimo's grandfather claimed to be a chieftain without having been born to the purple or elected by the tribe.
In 1876, the Mexican authorities complained bitterly to the United States of the raids and depredations in the state of Sonora by the Chiricahua Indians with the result that it was decided by the Government to remove the tribe from their reservation on the southern border, to San Carlos, Arizona. But Geronimo, who was a natural leader, soon gathered a few of the younger chiefs about him and fled into Mexico.
Later, he was arrested and sent with his band to Ojo Caliente, New Mexico. There, apparently, thoughts of war were abandoned and the redmen became successful tillers of the soil in the San Carlos Reservation.
The Lieutenant in the Family
After a time, the tribe once more became restless and discontented because the Government would not help them to irrigate their lands. Just how much justice was in the claim it is impossible now to ascertain. Other nearby lands were being watered and this favoritism, as they believed, as well as the competition of the neighboring ranches, doubtless had a strong effect on the Indians. At all events, in 1882, Geronimo was the leader of a band that was engaged in many raids in Sonora, but at last his force was surrounded and he surrendered to General George H. Crook in the Sierra Madre.