According to Captain Bourke, "'Archaise' and 'Ka-e-ten-na' came and awakened General Crook before it was yet daylight, on March 28, and informed him that 'Nachita,' one of the Chiricahua chiefs, was so drunk he couldn't stand up and was lying prone on the ground; other Chiricahuas were also drunk, but none so drunk as 'Nachita.' Whisky had been sold them by a rascal named Tribollet, who lived on the San Bernardino ranch, on the Mexican side of the line, about four hundred yards from the boundary. These Indians asked permission to take a squad of their soldiers and guard Tribollet and his men to keep them from selling any more of the soul-destroying stuff to the Chiricahuas. A beautiful commentary upon the civilization of the white man! When we reached Cajon Bonito, the woods and grass were on fire; four or five Chiricahua mules, already saddled, were wandering about without riders. Pretty soon we came upon 'Geronimo,' 'Kuthli' and three other Chiricahua warriors riding on two mules, all drunk as lords. It seemed to me a great shame that armies could not carry with them an atmosphere of military law which would have justified the hanging of the wretch, Tribollet, as a foe to human society. Upon arriving at San Bernardino Springs, Mr. Frank Leslie informed me that he had seen this man Tribollet sell thirty dollars' worth of mescal in less than one hour—all to Chiricahuas—and upon being remonstrated with, the wretch boasted that he could have sold one hundred dollars' worth that day at ten dollars a gallon in silver. That night, during a drizzling rain, a part of the Chiricahuas—those who had been drinking Tribollet's whisky stole out from Maus' camp and betook themselves to the mountains, frightened, as was afterward learned, by the lies told them by Tribollet and the men at his ranch. Two of the warriors, upon sobering up, returned voluntarily, and there is no doubt at all that, had General Crook not been relieved from the command of the Department of Arizona, he could have sent out runners from among their own people and brought back the last one without a shot being fired. Before being stampeded by the lies and the vile whisky of wicked men, whose only mode of livelihood was from the vices, weaknesses, or perils of the human race, all the Chiricahuas—drunk or sober—were in the best of humor and were quietly herding their ponies just outside of Maus' camp.
"Thus was one of the bravest, and, up to this point, most successful generals and his army defeated by one villainous wretch with a barrel of cheap whisky. What did Tribollet care how many settlers' homes were burned, their stock driven off, and their families butchered, if he could only sell his vile adulterated whisky at ten dollars a gallon in silver."
Many settlers of the Southwest had long believed that General Geronimo was a better officer than General Crook, and this result, just at the time of the proposed surrender, seemed to justify them.
About the most charitable construction we can put upon General Crook's action, or rather want of action, is that he was failing at this time, by reason of age, and "eight years of the hardest work of his life." He certainly was slow, careless and showed a lack of firmness in dealing with the villainous wretch, Tribollet.
If no other way was open, he could have arrested him, or acted on the suggestion of the Apache scout, and detailed a squad of soldiers to guard Tribollet and his men to keep them from selling whisky to the Indians, contrary to orders.
General Crook now tendered his resignation as commander of the Department of the Southwest, and was succeeded by Gen. Nelson A. Miles.
General Crook's policy had been to surround the hostiles and crush them as an anaconda does his prey; but he might as well have tried to crush an air-cushion. General Miles, who was our most successful Indian fighter, because he was somehow nearly always present when hostile Indians were ready to surrender, adopted a more active and vigorous campaign. He organized the expedient of offering a reward for each Indian or head of an Indian brought in. It is said that the price of an ordinary brave was $50, while Geronimo, dead or alive, was worth $2,000 to the one who should kill or capture him. In spite of these drastic measures, those who predicted a speedy end of the war were doomed to disappointment.
Capt. H. W. Lawton, Fourth Cavalry, took the field with his command, May 5, 1885. He intended at first to operate exclusively in Mexico, as it was thought that Geronimo had fled to his stronghold in the Sierra Madre. But this was only a ruse to send the soldiers on the wrong trail, while the band of that wily chief broke up into small companies and raided through southwestern Arizona and northwestern Sonora. But Lawton soon learned the deception and followed the raiding parties.
Captain Lawton's command consisted of thirty-five men of Troop B, Fourth Cavalry, twenty Indian scouts, twenty men of Company D, Eighth Infantry, and two pack trains. Fresh detachments of scouts and infantry took the places of those first sent out, and by the first part of July the Apaches had been driven southeast of Oposura. Up to this time Lawton's command had marched a distance equal to two-thirds of the breadth of the continent, surprised the hostiles once, and forced them to abandon their camps on three different occasions. The country at this time was burned over, and in many places there was neither grass nor water.
"Every device known to the Indian," wrote Captain Lawton, "was practiced to throw me off the trail, but without avail. My trailers were good, and it was soon proven that there was not a spot the enemy could reach where security was assured."