Despite General Terrasas' great victory at Tres Castilos as recorded in a preceding chapter, he did not entirely destroy all the Apaches that had been with old Victorio. Nana and fifty warriors escaped and finally joined Geronimo in his campaign of murder and destruction. On the night preceding the battle in which Victorio was killed and his band of warriors exterminated, twelve braves with four squaws and four children deserted the old chief and made their way to those rough mountains that fringe the Rio Grande in the vicinity of Eagle Springs. At once this band of twenty Indians began a series of pillages and murders that has no parallel considering the small size of the party.
The little band of Apaches soon appeared at Paso Viego and began their depredations by an attack on Lieutenant Mills and his cavalry. Paso Viego is a gap in the mountains that parallel the Rio Grande from Eagle Mountains on the west to Brites' ranch on the east, and is situated ten or twelve miles west of and in plain view of the present little town of Valentine, Texas, on the G., H & S.A. Railroad. The tribe of Pueblo Indians has lived at the old town of Ysleta, El Paso County, Texas, for more than three hundred years. They have always been friends to the Americans and inveterate enemies to the Apaches. It was customary, therefore, for the United States troops at Fort Davis to employ the Pueblos as guides during the Indian disturbances along the border. In 1881 Bernado and Simon Olgin, two brothers, were the principal chiefs of this tribe. Bernado was the elder and looked it. Both chiefs dressed in the usual Indian fashion, wore moccasins, buckskin leggins and had their long black hair braided and hanging down the back. Simon was a very handsome Indian, and he, with four of his tribe—all nephews of his, I think—were employed by General Grierson during the troublesome times of 1880-1881.
Simon and his four scouts had been detailed to make scouts down on the Rio Grande with Lieutenant Mills, commander of the Tenth United States Cavalry (colored). On their way out the troops reached Paso Viego early in the evening, and after they had eaten supper Simon Olgin advised the lieutenant to move out on the open plains three or four miles north of the pass where they would be safe from attack. Olgin declared Paso Viego was a favorite camping place for the Indians going to and returning from Mexico because of the fine water and good grass. He stated that should a band of redskins appear at the pass during the night and find it occupied by soldiers they would attack at daylight and probably kill some of the troopers.
Lieutenant Mills, fresh from West Point, replied that he was not afraid of Indians and did not propose to move. During the night the little band of twenty Apaches reached the pass, just as Olgin had prophesied, and hid themselves in the rocks. The next morning the soldiers had breakfast, packed their mules, and as they were standing by their horses ready for the order to mount a sudden fusillade of bullets was fired into their midst at short range. Other volleys came in quick succession. At the very first fire that grand old Indian, Simon Olgin, was shot down and killed, as were five or six of the negro cavalry. The remainder of the company thereupon fled, but the four Pueblo scouts, Olgin's nephews, took to the rocks and fought until they had routed the Apaches and saved the bodies of their old beloved uncle and the soldiers from falling into the hands of the attackers to be mutilated.
Repulsed at Paso Viego the twenty Apaches next appeared at Bass' Canyon, a gap in the mountains on the overland stage road about twelve or fourteen miles west of Van Horn. Here the redskins waylaid an immigrant train on its way to New Mexico. At the very first fire of the Indians Mrs. Graham, who was walking, jumped upon the tongue of the wagon and reached for a Winchester, but was shot and killed. A man named Grant was killed at the same time, while Mr. Graham had his thigh broken. From Bass' Canyon the Indians turned south, crossed around the east end of the Eagle Mountains and again entered Old Mexico, where they were for a time lost to view.
We next hear of this band at Ojo Calienta, some hot springs on the Rio Grande southwest from Eagle Mountains. A captain of cavalry with some colored troops near old Fort Quitman detailed seven men and instructed the sergeant in charge to scout down the river as far east as Bosque Bonita, keep a sharp lookout for Indian signs and report back to camp in one week. These troopers followed orders, and on their return journey camped for the night at Ojo Calienta. Next morning at break of day the soldiers were preparing to cook breakfast when the Apaches fell upon them and killed all save one at their first assault. This single survivor made his escape on foot, and after two days in the mountains without food finally reached the soldier camp and reported to his captain. The Indians evidently located the soldier scout the evening before but, as they never make a night attack, waited until daylight to massacre their victims. The redskins captured all the soldiers' equipment and baggage, including seven horses and two pack mules. They pillaged the camp and took everything movable away with them. Before resuming their journey the Apaches took six stake-pins made of iron and about twenty inches long that were used by the soldiers to drive into the ground as stakes to which to fasten their horses and drove one through each soldier's corpse, pinning it firmly to the earth. The captured stock was killed and eaten, for the soldiers' animals were fat while most of the ponies and little mules of the Apaches were worn out by constant use in the mountains, and consequently very poor.
This band was not heard of again for nearly two months—until the warriors set upon the stage at Quitman Canyon and killed the driver, Morgan, and the gambler, Crenshaw, a passenger. The reports about this stage robbery and murder were so conflicting and the impression so strong that the driver and the passenger had themselves robbed the stage and made Indian signs to avert suspicion that Captain Baylor deemed it best to go down to the canyon and investigate for himself. Accordingly, the captain made a detail of fourteen privates and one corporal, and with ten days' rations on two pack mules left Ysleta on January 16th to ascertain if possible whether the stage had been robbed and the driver and passenger killed by Indians or by white men, and to punish the robbers if they could be caught. To keep down disorder and violence threatened at El Paso, the captain left me and a detail of three men in our camp at Ysleta.
At Quitman, Captain Baylor learned that the trail of the stage robbers bore southwest to Ojo Calienta, and as the foothills of Quitman Mountains are very rough, he went down the north bank of the Rio Grande, as he felt quite certain he would cut signs in that direction. About twenty-five miles below Quitman he struck the trail of a freshly shod mule, two barefooted ponies and two unshod mules, and within fifty yards of the trail he found the kid glove thought to have been Crenshaw's. The trail now bore down the river and crossed into Mexico, where the Indian band made its first camp. Captain Baylor followed, and the next day found the Apaches' second camp near the foothills of the Los Pinos Mountains, where we had left General Terrasas the fall before. Here all doubts about the Indians were dispelled, as the rangers found a horse killed with the meat taken as food and a pair of old moccasins. Besides, the camp was selected on a high bare hill after the custom of the Indians. The same day Captain Baylor found another camp and a dead mule, and on the trail discovered a boot-top recognized as that of Morgan, the driver. Here also was the trail of some fifteen or twenty mules and ponies, quite fresh, coming from the direction of the Candelario Mountains with one small trail of three mules going toward the Rio Grande. The rangers passed through some very rough, deep canyons and camped on the south side of the Rio Grande, this being their second night in Mexico.
Next morning the trail crossed back into Texas. Going toward Major Carpenter's old camp above the Bosque Bonito the scouting party found a camp where the Indians had evidently made a cache, but Captain Baylor only tarried here a short time and followed on down the river a few miles when he found the Apaches had struck out on a bee line for the Eagle Mountains. The captain felt some hesitation about crossing the plains between the Eagle Mountains and the Rio Grande in the daytime for fear of being seen by the Indians, but as the trail was several days old he took the risk of being discovered. He camped within three or four miles of the mountains and at daybreak took the trail up a canyon leading into the peaks. The party came suddenly upon an Apache camp which had been hastily deserted that morning, for the Indians left blankets, quilts, buckskins and many other things useful to them. They had just killed and had piled up in camp two horses and a mule, the blood of which had been caught in tin vessels. One mule's tongue was stewing over a fire and everything indicated the redskins were on the eve of a jolly war dance, for the rangers found a five-gallon can of mescal wine and a horse skin sunk in the ground that contained fifteen or twenty gallons more. Here Captain Baylor found the mate to Morgan's boot-top and a bag made from the legs of the passenger's pantaloons, besides express receipts, postal cards and other articles taken from the stage. The night before had been bitterly cold and the ground had frozen hard as flint rock, so the rangers could not get the trail, though they searched the mountains in every direction, and the three Pueblo Indians, Bernado Olgin, Domingo Olgin, and Aneseta Duran, looked over every foot of the ground. The scouting party now turned back toward Mexico to scout back on the west side of the Eagle Mountains around to Eagle Springs in search of the trail.
At Eagle Springs, as good luck would have it, Captain Baylor learned that Lieutenant Nevill and nine men had just gone toward Quitman to look for him. As soon as Lieutenant Nevill returned to the Springs he informed Baylor that he had seen the trail six miles east of Eagle Springs and that it led toward the Carrizo Springs or Diablo Mountains.