Felmer was a first-class shot, and we naturally supposed that the joke would be on the deluded savage who might sneak down to ride away with such a crow-bait, and would become the mark for an unerring rifle. But it was not so to be. The wretched quadruped had his shoes pulled off, and was then turned loose in alfalfa and young barley, to his evident enjoyment and benefit. Some time had passed, and we had almost forgotten to twit Felmer about his bargain. It’s a very thin joke that cannot be made to last five or six weeks in such a secluded spot as Old Camp Grant, and, for that reason, at least a month must have elapsed when, one bright Sunday afternoon, Felmer was rudely aroused from his siesta by the noise of guns and the voices of his Mexican herders crying: “Apaches! Apaches!” And there they were, sure enough, and on top of that sick, broken-down cast-off of the quartermaster’s department—three of them, each as big as the side of a house, and poor Joe so dazed that for several minutes he couldn’t fire a shot.
The two bucks in front were kicking their heels into the mule’s ribs, and the man in rear had passed a hair lariat under the mule’s tail, and was sawing away for dear life. And the mule? Well, the mule wasn’t idle by any means, but putting in his best licks in getting over the ground, jumping “arroyos” and rocks, charging into and over nopals and chollas and mesquite, and fast leaving behind him the valley of the San Pedro, and getting into the foot-hills of the Pinaleno Range.
CHAPTER II.
STRANGE VISITORS—SOME APACHE CUSTOMS—MEXICAN CAPTIVES—SPEEDY AND THE GHOST—THE ATTACK UPON KENNEDY AND ISRAEL’S TRAIN—FINDING THE BODIES—THE DEAD APACHE—A FRONTIER BURIAL—HOW LIEUTENANT YEATON RECEIVED HIS DEATH WOUND—ON THE TRAIL WITH LIEUTENANT CUSHING—REVENGE IS SWEET.
We had all sorts of visitors from the adjacent country. The first I remember was a squaw whose nose had been cut off by a brutal and jealous husband. The woman was not at all bad looking, and there was not a man at the post who did not feel sorry for the unfortunate who, for some dereliction, real or imagined, had been so savagely disfigured.
This shocking mode of punishment, in which, by the way, the Apache resembled some of the nations of antiquity, prevailed in full vigor until after General Crook had subjected this fierce tribe to law and discipline, and the first, or, at least, among the very first, regulations he laid down for their guidance was that the women of the tribe must be treated just as kindly as the men, and each and every infraction of the rule was threatened with the severest punishment the whole military force could inflict. Since then the practice has wholly died out among both the Apaches and the Hualpais.
Then there came an old withered crone, leading a woman somewhat younger, but still shrivelled with the life of care and drudgery which falls to the lot of the Apache matron, and a third member of this interesting party, a boy ten or twelve years old, who was suffering from the bite of a rattlesnake, which had caused his right leg to shrink and decay. The medicine-men of their band had sung vigorously and applied such medicine as they thought best suited to the case, but it proved to be beyond their skill, and they had advised this journey to Camp Grant, to see what the white man’s medicine could do for the sufferer.
Still another interesting picture framed in my memory is that of the bent old dotard who wished to surrender on account of frankly confessed impotency to remain longer on the war-path. Battles were for young men only; as people grew older they got more sense, and all should live as brothers. This world was large enough for everybody, and there should be enough to eat for the Indians and the white men, too. There were men whose hearts were hard and who would not listen to reason; they wished to fight, but as for himself, his legs could not climb the mountains any longer, and the thorns were bad when they scratched his skin. His heart was good, and so long as this stone which he placed on the ground should last he wanted to let the Great Father know that he meant to be his friend. Had his brother, the post commander, any tobacco?
Many an hour did I sit by the side of our friend and brother, watching him chip out arrow-heads from fragments of beer bottles, or admiring the dexterity with which he rubbed two sticks together to produce flame. Matches were his greatest treasure, and he was never tired begging for them, and as soon as obtained, he would wrap them up carefully in a piece of buckskin to screen from the weather. But we never gave him reason to suspect that our generosity was running away with our judgment. We were careful not to give him any after we found out that he could make fire so speedily and in a manner so strange, and which we were never tired of seeing.
These members of the tribe were all kept as prisoners, more to prevent communication with the enemy than from any suspected intention of attempting an escape. They were perfectly contented, were well fed, had no more to do than was absolutely good for them in the way of exercise, and except that they had to sleep under the eyes of the sentinels at night, were as free as any one else in the garrison. Once or twice Indian couriers came over from Camp Apache—or Thomas, as it was then called—in the Sierra Blanca. Those whom I first saw were almost naked, their only clothing being a muslin loin-cloth, a pair of pointed-toed moccasins, and a hat of hawk feathers. They had no arms but lances and bows and arrows. One of them bore a small round shield of raw-hide decked with eagle plumage, another had a pretty fiddle made of a joint of the bamboo-like stalk of the century plant, and a third had a pack of monte cards, cut out of dried pony skin and painted to represent rudely the figures in the four suits.