"So you have spoken and so shall we do," said Geronimo. "But it is a long way to the border where General Miles awaits, and this is enemy country. We will not surrender our arms until we are met by General Miles."
"That is agreeable," said Lieutenant Gatewood. "In addition, Captain Lawton and a company of soldiers are camped not far away. I will ask them to march with you and help beat off any Mexicans who may attack."
"You march with us," Geronimo said. "Captain Lawton and his soldiers may come, but they are to stay ahead or behind. We do not care to mingle with white soldiers."
"That, too, is agreeable," said Lieutenant Gatewood.
It was thus that the Apaches marched to the border of Mexico. Lieutenant Gatewood marched with them. Captain Lawton provided an escort of American soldiers. And a mob of two hundred Mexicans, who finally saw the hated Apaches in captivity, trailed them all the way. But the Mexicans did not dare start a fight.
When they reached the camp where General Miles was waiting, Geronimo stalked haughtily to the general, who stared coldly at the great Apache leader. Geronimo and his warriors laid down the arms that they had carried so many miles and into so many battles. The disarmed Apaches were surrounded by soldiers who took them, first to prison cells at Arizona's Fort Bowie, then to the train that carried them to exile in Florida.
So ended the fighting days of Geronimo, the last and fiercest Apache war chief. And so, also, ended the Indian Wars in the Southwest. Never again would men and women on lonely ranches or in isolated villages awaken, trembling, in the middle of the night to hear the pound of ponies' hoofs and the wild Apache war cry. Never again would travelers in Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico find it necessary to travel in groups and well-armed for fear of Apache attacks.
Geronimo and his followers, as well as many other Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apaches, were imprisoned at old Fort Pickens, or at Fort Marion, in Florida. Eventually they were moved to a reservation in what was then Indian Territory and what is now the State of Oklahoma. There Geronimo died at Fort Sill, on February 17, 1909.