On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

He wanted them always to tell him the exact truth, as he should never say anything to them which was not true; and he hoped that as they became better acquainted, they would always feel that his word could be relied on. He would do all in his power for them, but would never make them a promise he could not carry out. There was no good in such a manner of doing, and bad feeling often grew up between good friends through misunderstandings in regard to promises not kept. He would make no such promises; and as the way in which they might remember a thing might happen to be different from the way in which he remembered it, he would do all he could to prevent misunderstandings, by having every word he said to them put down in black and white on paper, of which, if they so desired, they could keep a copy. When men were afraid to put their words on paper, it looked as if they did not mean half what they said. He wanted to treat the Apache just the same as he would treat any other man—as a man. He did not believe in one kind of treatment for the white and another for the Indian. All should fare alike; but so long as the Indian remained ignorant of our laws and language it was for his own good that the troops remained with him, and he must keep within the limits of the Reservations set apart for him. He hoped the time would soon come when the children of the Apaches would be going to school, learning all the white men had to teach to their own children, and all of them, young or old, free to travel as they pleased all over the country, able to work anywhere, and not in fear of the white men or the white men of them. Finally, he repeated his urgent request that every effort should be made to spread these views among all the others who might still be out in the mountains, and to convince them that the safest and best course for all to adopt was that of peace with all mankind. After a reasonable time had been given for all to come in, he intended to start out in person and see to it that the last man returned to the Reservations or died in the mountains.

To all this the Apaches listened with deep attention, at intervals expressing approbation after their manner by heavy grunts and the utterance of the monosyllable “Inju” (good).

The Apaches living in the vicinity of Camp Apache are of purer Tinneh blood than those bands which occupied the western crest of the long Mogollon plateau, or the summits of the lofty Matitzal. The latter have very appreciably intermixed with the conquered people of the same stock as the Mojaves and Yumas of the Colorado valley, and the consequence is that the two languages are, in many cases, spoken interchangeably, and not a few of the chiefs and head men possess two names—one in the Apache, the other in the Mojave tongue.

After leaving Camp Apache, the command was greatly reduced by the departure of three of the companies in as many directions; one of these—Guy V. Henry’s—ran in on a party of hostile Apaches and exchanged shots, killing one warrior whose body fell into our hands. The course of those who were to accompany General Crook was nearly due west, along the rim of what is called the Mogollon Mountain or plateau, a range of very large size and great elevation, covered on its summits with a forest of large pine-trees. It is a strange upheaval, a strange freak of nature, a mountain canted up on one side; one rides along the edge and looks down two and three thousand feet into what is termed the “Tonto Basin,” a weird scene of grandeur and rugged beauty. The “Basin” is a basin only in the sense that it is all lower than the ranges enclosing it—the Mogollon, the Matitzal and the Sierra Ancha—but its whole triangular area is so cut up by ravines, arroyos, small stream beds and hills of very good height, that it may safely be pronounced one of the roughest spots on the globe. It is plentifully watered by the affluents of the Rio Verde and its East Fork, and by the Tonto and the Little Tonto; since the subjugation of the Apaches it has produced abundantly of peaches and strawberries, and potatoes have done wonderfully on the summit of the Mogollon itself in the sheltered swales in the pine forest. At the date of our march all this section of Arizona was still unmapped, and we had to depend upon Apache guides to conduct us until within sight of the Matitzal range, four or five days out from Camp Apache.

The most singular thing to note about the Mogollon was the fact that the streams which flowed upon its surface in almost every case made their way to the north and east into Shevlon’s Fork, even where they had their origin in springs almost upon the crest itself. One exception is the spring named after General Crook (General’s Springs), which he discovered, and near which he had such a narrow escape from being killed by Apaches—that makes into the East Fork of the Verde. It is an awe-inspiring sensation to be able to sit or stand upon the edge of such a precipice and look down upon a broad expanse mantled with juicy grasses, the paradise of live stock. There is no finer grazing section anywhere than the Tonto Basin, and cattle, sheep, and horses all now do well in it. It is from its ruggedness eminently suited for the purpose, and in this respect differs from the Sulphur Springs valley which has been occupied by cattlemen to the exclusion of the farmer, despite the fact that all along its length one can find water by digging a few feet beneath the surface. Such land as the Sulphur Springs valley would be more profitably employed in the cultivation of the grape and cereals than as a range for a few thousand head of cattle as is now the case.

The Tonto Basin was well supplied with deer and other wild animals, as well as with mescal, Spanish bayonet, acorn-bearing oak, walnuts, and other favorite foods of the Apaches, while the higher levels of the Mogollon and the other ranges were at one and the same time pleasant abiding-places during the heats of summer, and ramparts of protection against the sudden incursion of an enemy. I have already spoken of the wealth of flowers to be seen in these high places; I can only add that throughout our march across the Mogollon range—some eleven days in time—we saw spread out before us a carpet of colors which would rival the best examples of the looms of Turkey or Persia.

Approaching the western edge of the plateau, we entered the country occupied by the Tonto Apaches, the fiercest band of this wild and apparently incorrigible family. We were riding along in a very lovely stretch of pine forest one sunny afternoon, admiring the wealth of timber which would one day be made tributary to the world’s commerce, looking down upon the ever-varying colors of the wild flowers which spangled the ground for leagues (because in these forests upon the summits of all of Arizona’s great mountain ranges there is never any underbrush, as is the case in countries where there is a greater amount of humidity in the atmosphere), and ever and anon exchanging expressions of pleasure and wonder at the vista spread out beneath us in the immense Basin to the left and front, bounded by the lofty ridges of the Sierra Ancha and the Matitzal; each one was talking pleasantly to his neighbor, and as it happened the road we were pursuing—to call it road where human being had never before passed—was so even and clear that we were riding five and six abreast, General Crook, Lieutenant Ross, Captain Brent, Mr. Thomas Moore, and myself a short distance in advance of the cavalry, and the pack-train whose tinkling bells sounded lazily among the trees—and were all delighted to be able to go into camp in such a romantic spot—when “whiz! whiz!” sounded the arrows of a small party of Tontos who had been watching our advance and determined to try the effects of a brisk attack, not knowing that we were merely the advance of a larger command.

The Apaches could not, in so dense a forest, see any distance ahead; but did not hesitate to do the best they could to stampede us, and consequently attacked boldly with arrows which made no noise to arouse the suspicions of the white men in rear. The arrows were discharged with such force that one of them entered a pine-tree as far as the feathers, and another not quite so far, but still too far to allow of its extraction. There was a trifle of excitement until we could get our bearings and see just what was the matter, and in the mean time every man had found his tree without waiting for any command. The Apaches—of the Tonto band—did not number more than fifteen or twenty at most and were already in retreat, as they saw the companies coming up at a brisk trot, the commanders having noticed the confusion in the advance. Two of the Apaches were cut off from their comrades, and as we supposed were certain to fall into our hands as prisoners. This would have been exactly what General Crook desired, because he could then have the means of opening communication with the band in question, which had refused to respond to any and all overtures for the cessation of hostilities.

There they stood; almost entirely concealed behind great boulders on the very edge of the precipice, their bows drawn to a semi-circle, eyes gleaming with a snaky black fire, long unkempt hair flowing down over their shoulders, bodies almost completely naked, faces streaked with the juice of the baked mescal and the blood of the deer or antelope—a most repulsive picture and yet one in which there was not the slightest suggestion of cowardice. They seemed to know their doom, but not to fear it in the slightest degree. The tinkling of the pack-train bells showed that all our command had arrived, and then the Apaches, realizing that it was useless to delay further, fired their arrows more in bravado than with the hope of inflicting injury, as our men were all well covered by the trees, and then over the precipice they went, as we supposed, to certain death and destruction. We were all so horrified at the sight, that for a moment or more it did not occur to any one to look over the crest, but when we did it was seen that the two savages were rapidly following down the merest thread of a trail outlined in the vertical face of the basalt, and jumping from rock to rock like mountain sheep. General Crook drew bead, aimed quickly and fired; the arm of one of the fugitives hung limp by his side, and the red stream gushing out showed that he had been badly hurt; but he did not relax his speed a particle, but kept up with his comrade in a headlong dash down the precipice, and escaped into the scrub-oak on the lower flanks although the evening air resounded with the noise of carbines reverberating from peak to peak. It was so hard to believe that any human beings could escape down such a terrible place, that every one was rather in expectation of seeing the Apaches dashed to pieces, and for that reason no one could do his best shooting.

At this time we had neither the detachment of scouts with which we had left Tucson—they had been discharged at Camp Apache the moment that General Crook received word that the authorities in Washington were about to make the trial of sending commissioners to treat with the Apaches—nor the small party of five Apaches who had conducted us out from Camp Apache until we had reached the centre of the Mogollon; and, as the country was unmapped and unknown, we had to depend upon ourselves for reaching Camp Verde, which no one in the party had ever visited.