Of the Apache, now transformed by the iron hand of civilization from a blood-thirsty savage to a passably decent and partially self-supporting member of the republic, it has been aptly said that Nature has given him "the ear of the cat, the cunning of the fox, and the ferocious courage and brutishness of the gray wolf."
The whole vast realm of his native ranges, desert though they seem, are known to teem with ever-present supplies for his savage menu.
There are found fat prairie mice, plump angle-worms, gray meat of rattlesnake and lizard, and of leathery bronco,—all easy-coming "grist for that 'unpernickety' mill," his hungry stomach.
Is he minded for a vegetable diet, for him the mescal lavishly grows; and the bean of mesquite, reduced to meal, makes him palatable cakes. Fruit of Spanish bayonet dried in the sun, and said thus to resemble dates, is at hand for his dessert; and of mountain acorns alone he may make an excellent and nutritious meal.
From the primeval years this belligerent savage is said to have especially harried that dismal waste in New Mexico known as Jornado del Muerta, "Journey of Death."
This awful desert is declared to be literally "the battle-ground of the elements." In the winter it is made fearful by raging storms of wind and snow, in which frozen men and animals leave their bodies, as carrion prey, to the hungry mountain wolf. In later times it is "the skulking place of unscrupulous outlaws, and many a murdered traveller makes good the name it bears."
It is thus finely depicted by a modern traveller: "Near the southern boundary of New Mexico stretches a shadeless, waterless plateau, nearly one hundred miles long, and from five to thirty miles wide, resembling the steppes of northern Asia. Geologists tell us this is the oldest country on the earth, except, perhaps, the backbone of Central Africa; at least, the one which has longest been exposed to the influence of agents now in action. The grass is low and mossy, with a wasted look; the shrubs are soap-weed and bony cactus; the very stones are like the scoria of a furnace. It is sought by no flight of bird; no bee or fly buzzes on the empty air; and, save the lizard and horned frog, there is no breath of living thing. One might fancy that this dreary waste had served its time, had been worn out, unpeopled, and forgotten."
In the (not long past) day of his power and might, to steal and murder, under the show of friendship; to beat out the brains of unsuspecting men; to carry off to captivity, worse than death, the women and larger children, was, with the Apache, merely a question of opportunity.
In the Apache war—ending in October, 1880, and lasting but a year and a half,—it is estimated that more than four hundred white persons were scalped and tortured to death with devilish ingenuity.
The details of Indian fighting are everywhere much the same; but in strategy and cruelty that of the Apache surpasses all the sons of men. Victorio, the chief who led the war with his band, was surrounded at last, and captured, and killed in the mountains of Mexico.