Chapter VII: Part 7

Then, one dark night, Cochise took his entire tribe, numbering somewhere between two and three hundred men, women, and children, down the niches among the cliffs. Carrying their arms and their scanty baggage, the Apaches wormed their way from the crest to the plain two thousand feet below and crawled through the line of the besiegers. So adroitly was the thing manoeuvered that no one cut their trail, and two days passed before the escape was discovered. By that time the whole band were raiding down along the headwaters of the San Pedro, getting new horses from the herds of ranchers on the border.

In the old days this northern end of the Dragoon Mountains, which towers above the flat lands of the Sulphur Springs valley on the one side and the rolling plains of the San Pedro on the other, had been known among the Apaches as the abode of the dead. Here, they said, the departed spirits of their ancestors whispered among the granite caves and pinnacles every evening with the coming of the night wind.

But from now on they forgot the tribal legends and looked upon the place as their inviolable refuge.

Time after time the blue-clad troopers chased them as far as the base of the cliffs, but never pressed them farther. For Cochise had developed into a consummate strategist and, for the first time in their history, the Apaches learned the art of making a stand against superior forces.

To this day the rolling hills under those pinkish granite precipices show traces of the camps which the troopers occupied during successive sieges, only to abandon them on learning that their turbaned enemies had stolen away in some other quarter to resume their raiding all along the border.

In some of the canyons which lead up toward the ragged crests of naked rock one can still pick up old brass cartridge-shells, the relics of grim battles where the soldiers always found themselves at a disadvantage, targets for the frowzy, naked savages who slipped and squirmed among the granite masses above them like rattlesnakes.

Far to the southward the Sierra Madre reared its lofty crests toward the flaring sky; and there Cochise established another sanctuary where his people could rest and hunt when the chase became too hot in Arizona. His breech-clouted scouts discovered some dry placer diggings here, and he bade the squaws mine the dust which he exchanged with crooked-souled white traders for ammunition.

And now, having mastered the art of flight as he had mastered the art of raiding, the war-chief of the Chiracahua Apaches waged his vendetta against the white men more remorselessly than any of his forefathers had done in their time.

But few men are absolutely consistent and Cochise had some idiosyncracies, which it is just as well to note in passing, for they give an inkling of a side of his character that was instrumental in bringing an end to the whole bloody business.

For one thing he could not enjoy torturing his prisoners. He tried that once on a Mexican down Agua Prieta way. After the custom of his nation he pegged out the luckless prisoner near an ant-hill, with his mouth propped open by a wooden gag and a trail of honey leading into it.

But when he settled down that night to enjoy the torments of the man, he found that pleasure would not come to him; and during the long hours that followed, the groans of the slowly dying Mexican became a punishment to his savage captor, a punishment which endured for years afterward, for in his sleep Cochise sometimes heard those moanings when he was an old man, and hearing them sweated in agony of mind.

Another of his peculiarities was a love of the truth. He was no hand at lying like the ordinary Indian. In an era when the white men were careless with their compacts, an era when Washington set the fashion in breaking treaties with the hostile Indians, he came out with the reputation of always keeping his word.

"If you can not tell the truth," he said, "keep silent or avoid the subject."

That was the way he put it to Captain Thomas Jonathan Jeffords, to whom he also confessed the weakness which had overcome him in the case of the tortured Mexican. And the knowledge of this side of Cochise's character helped Captain Jeffords to pave the way for the wind-up of the war-chief's maraudings. That knowledge came after a long strange intimacy which began in a remarkable manner.

This Captain Thomas Jonathan Jeffords owned a wagon outfit and not only contracted for government freighting in those times when teaming was a perilous venture, but rode as an express messenger for various military posts along the border. During the days when Cochise was using the northern end of the Dragoon Mountains as his stronghold, the days before these two men became acquainted, the lean brown warriors made several attacks on Jeffords's wagon-trains and on more than one occasion forced the old-timer himself to do some extremely hard riding.

Finally when he had lost fourteen employees and property amounting to thousands of dollars in ambuscades and raids, Jeffords decided that it was high time to put an end to this sort of thing as far as he was concerned. He had tried reprisals on his own account but although he and his leather-skinned followers had managed to kill off numerous Apaches, there were more warriors in the tribe than he could ever hope to massacre.

He had worked with the soldiers as a scout but had found the cavalry hampered by too many conflicting orders from Washington, and in some cases too inefficiently officered in high places, to be very formidable. Cochise was too much for them to handle and that was all there was about it. Now he made up his mind to try a new scheme.

Captain Jeffords had mixed a great deal with Apaches of various tribes, until he knew their customs as well as they did themselves. He could speak their tongue and he knew the sign language which was the lingua Franca of the western tribes. He could read smoke signals; he had made friends among those of the renegades who sometimes took a long chance and drifted down to the government posts in company with peaceful Indians. Gradually he got such information as he could, and as he got it he stored it away in his mind until he felt he was as well equipped with knowledge as he could hope.

Then he set forth one day to pay a visit to Cochise in person. It was a risky venture but the old-timers never balked at taking long chances; else they would never have come west of the Rio Grande. Jeffords induced an Apache who had been with Cochise to accompany him part way on the journey; and before the Indian back-tracked for the military post, he had him send up a smoke signal announcing the visit and stating that its nature was peaceable.

When the last shreds of smoke vanished in the clear sky the native departed and Jeffords resumed his journey toward the Dragoons. No answering sign had come from those scarred granite peaks; and as he rode on across the blazing plain they stood forth against the cloudless sky, frowning, inscrutable. For all that the eye could see they might have been deserted, without life among them since the beginning of time; or they might be at this moment sheltering hundreds of biding enemies. He had to wait until he got among those rocks before he knew what they held in store for him.

He rode to the edge of the plain and from the lowlands up the first slopes of talus at the mouth of a long, steep-walled canyon. He pressed his horse on up the narrow gorge. On either side the cliffs loomed above him; in places they were so close together that he could have tossed a pebble from one to the other. There was no sign of life; no sound, no movement.

But this tall lean rider knew that somewhere among those granite pinnacles which stood out against the sky-line before him and on either side, scores of venomous black eyes were watching him. He knew that for every pair of eyes there was a rifle; and that many a crooked brown finger was fairly itching to press the trigger.

Thus he rode his sweating pony up and up where the gorge wound toward the summit, up and up until he reached the nests of enormous granite boulders which hang seemingly poised between the heavens and the flat plain beneath. And finally he saw before him the lodges made of bended bushes with skins and blankets spread over their curved sides. He reined in his horse, dismounted, and walked into the camp of the renegades.

Cochise was sitting in his lodge, which was but a bare shelter from the sun's rays--a number of bushes bound together at their tops formed the ribs for a haphazard sort of tent made of outspread skins,--and whether he was awaiting this visit no man knows. For the war-chief showed no sign of surprise or of welcome when Captain Jeffords entered the place. But when the tall white man had seated himself upon the skins which covered the dry earth and announced his purpose, Cochise betrayed astonishment.

"I have come here," Jeffords said with the deliberation which one must use when he is talking with an Indian, "to see you, to know you better, and to talk over certain matters with you. I will stay here two days or maybe three; and while I remain--to show my good faith--one of your squaws may keep my weapons." With which he laid aside his rifle and revolver.

After a silence whose length would have been disconcerting to any other than an old-timer owning a knowledge of the Indian ways, Cochise called a squaw, who picked up the firearms at his bidding and took them away with her. Then these two men of parts settled down to talk business.

It took them two days and two nights, for Jeffords was careful not to crowd matters in the slightest, hanging to the savage custom of long silences and few words at a time between them. As the hours went on he sat there patiently listening to the war-chief recounting at great length his experiences with the white men, reciting the stories of bad faith and broken compacts; and when these recitals were finished he continued to sit in silence for long intervals, before he resumed his own arguments.

Thus the talk went on in the little brush shelter during the hot days and the cool evenings; and what it all came to was this:

Jeffords said that this war between Cochise and the soldiers was not his war. It was, he maintained, no business of his excepting when the officers who carried the authority of the great father in Washington, bade him to do their bidding and act as a guide or scout. Otherwise, why should he take up his good time and risk his life in fighting a people against whom he held no personal grudge?

And why should that people bother their heads and risk their lives in fighting him? He followed that question by reminding Cochise of the reprisals which he had launched against the Chiracahua Apaches. They had killed fourteen of his men and stolen much of his property; but he and his men had killed several times fourteen of Cochise's warriors and had wrought devastation in proportion. Did that pay the Apaches?

Well, then, why keep on with it? He knew good things of Cochise and had respect for him. Cochise knew who he was and the sort of man he was. No need for them to go on injuring each other and each other's people. They could call it a draw and quit right now.

If the white soldiers demanded Jefford's services, all well and good; he would go and serve them as scout or interpreter or guide, and do what fighting one must do when he is on the war-path. And on such occasions, if the warriors of Cochise could kill him or capture him, all right; it was their privilege. But no more of this attacking each other out of season. If Cochise would let his men and property alone, he would no longer make any raids on Cochise's people.

That was the gist of it and it took a long time to say; a long time during which Cochise told Jeffords many things and Jeffords spoke with Cochise of many subjects outside the direct line of discussion. For that was the Indian manner; they must feel each other out and satisfy themselves each as to the other's personality.

In the end they shook hands on their bargain, and Captain Thomas Jonathan Jeffords got back his weapons from the squaw, saddled up his pony, and rode forth from the camp of the Apache war-chief, the party of the first part to a compact such as never had been heard of up to that time in the history of Indian warfare.

That compact stood. And there were times when its observance was a delicate matter; times when Captain Jeffords had to draw fine lines between his duty as a government scout and his obligations to Cochise. But he managed to perform those duties and to keep the faith; and although he went forth with the cavalry troopers on many an occasion, serving them faithfully and well, he never fell out with the war-chief of the Chiracahuas.

In fact their friendship grew as the years went by and they came to regard each other as brothers. During such visits as he paid to the stronghold in lulls of the border warfare, Jeffords got to know much of Cochise's history, of his grievances, and of his point of view.

During these same years there came a change in the command, and General George Crook, who is looked upon by the old-timers as perhaps the greatest of our Indian-fighters, led the cavalry against the Apaches. Crook's understanding of the Indian was perfect; and not only was he able to beat the natives at their own game of ambuscade but he thoroughly sympathized with their cause. He knew how Washington and incompetent officers had blundered and lied to them.

It was therefore with the utmost willingness that he combined his campaign of savage fighting with another and quieter campaign of diplomacy which was being waged by General O. O. Howard.

The latter had been sent out by President Grant to get the Chiracahua Apaches back on the reservation. And one day he made up his mind to open negotiations with the war-chief in person.

He asked his scouts for a man who could find where Cochise was hiding at the time and conduct him to the place, and they told him that there was only one man in the territory of Arizona, who stood a chance of doing this--Captain Jeffords.

General Howard sent for Jeffords and the two conferred in the presence of a number of cavalry officers. And when the general had announced his purpose a dispute arose; the officers advised him to take along a strong escort of troops if he intended making this call. Jeffords declared flatly that such an escort would need all the cavalry along the border. No troops or else an army, was his way of putting it; and if there were an army he did not purpose accompanying the expedition. On the other hand he would willingly take General Howard alone. They compromised by sending along a single aide, a captain.

Then these three men journeyed to the northern end of the Dragoon Mountains; and as they crossed the wide plains toward the somber range, they halted two or three times while Captain Jeffords built a little fire. The general and his aide watched the old-timer standing by the wisp of flame, sprinkling upon it now one sort of fuel and now another, occasionally smothering the rising fumes with his saddle blanket. And as they rode onward they saw the smoke of Apache signal-fires rising from the ragged summits ahead of them. They saw these things, and it is a fact that they thought but little of them.

So they marveled when Captain Jeffords chose his route into the mountains without hesitation; and their wonder grew when he pointed to a group of enormous boulders which topped the ridge ahead of them, saying--

"We will find Cochise's people camped there to-day."

They rode on upward and came into the camp of the Apaches. Here and there a ragged squaw peered out of a dirty lodge at them; they saw a group of children scattering like frightened quail. There were no warriors, only one or two old men.

"Where is Cochise?" General Howard asked.

"He will be here within an hour," Jeffords answered, "and when he comes you will know him because you will see riding ahead of him the ugliest-looking Apache in Arizona carrying a lance."

And because Jeffords had exchanged no word as yet with the Indians, the two white men marveled again.

The old-timer led them to the chief's lodge, where they sat down and waited.

Within the hour a group of Apaches came riding up the nearest gorge, and at their head General Howard saw one whose sinister face conformed to the description which Jeffords had given him. The warrior was carrying a lance. And behind him rode the war-chief. Cochise dismounted and entered his lodge. After the Mexican fashion he kissed Jeffords on both cheeks embracing him warmly. Then--

"What is it these men want?" he asked.

Jeffords introduced General Howard and the aide, and stated the former's motive in making this visit. Cochise sat silent for some moments. At length, pointing to General Howard--

--"Will he keep his word if we exchange promises?" he demanded.

"I have advised him not to promise too much, as is the habit of many white men," Jeffords answered, "and I believe he is honest."

The old war-chief fell silent again. Finally he turned to General Howard.

"Some of my young men," he said slowly, "are away now. They are making their living. They may come back at any time. And when they come back there may be trouble. It would be better if you were not here then."

And General Howard knew enough about the Apaches and their habits to be sure in what manner those young men were making their living; what sort of trouble would probably follow their arrival in the camp. It would be an awkward situation if he were to be in this place during a battle between the savages and his fellow-soldiers. But he was not a young man and the prospects of a long ride back to the nearest military post were not alluring. He said as much.

"Four of my young men will take you to a good place," Cochise told him, "and after the third day they will bring you back."

On the advice of Jeffords this course of action was agreed to; and four Apaches took General Howard down into the valley as far as the point where the Sulphur Springs ranch buildings now stand.

Jeffords and the aide bided here on the heights with the Indians. And on the second day, true to Cochise's prophecy, a band of renegades came riding hard up the gorge. The spot where the Indians were encamped was a saddle at the summit, some hundreds of feet lower than the adjoining ridges. Now as the fugitive warriors threw themselves from their lathered ponies, announcing that two troops of cavalry were close behind them, the aide of General Howard witnessed one of those spectacles which are easier to tell than to believe.

With the announcement of this emergency, the camp moved. In the same time that it takes to say the foregoing sentence, it moved--men, women, children, and every bit of impedimenta. It was like one of those magic transformations of which we used to read in fairy-tales when we were children.

One moment the Apaches were squatting among their lodges; and in the next moment people and goods and wickiups were gone; the place was bare.

Every warrior and squaw and child seized what objects were nearest at hand, overlooking none, and scampered off with them. Within a few minutes of the arrival of the fugitives, the entire band was scattered among the boulders and pinnacles on the higher portion of the ridge; Cochise was disposing his warriors to the best advantage to repel the attack.

But the cavalry made no advance beyond the canyon mouth, and there was no fight. When General Howard returned at the end of the next day he saw the manner in which the war-chief had deployed his men and was struck with admiration. No general, he said in telling of the incident afterward, no matter how highly schooled in the arts of modern warfare, could have disposed of his forces to better advantage than this savage had done.

Then General Howard, his aide, and Captain Jeffords were given one of those primitive lodges and settled down here among the lofty heights of Cochise's stronghold, isolated from all white men, surrounded by the most bloodthirsty savages in America, rubbing elbows with naked warriors who had spent the years of their manhood perfecting themselves in the fine arts of ambush and murder.

Cochise saw to it that they were well supplied with robes and blankets; by his orders they were feasted as became ambassadors; and General Howard ate with a relish one evening a stew which he afterward learned was made from the meat of a fat half-grown colt.

The conference went on at a leisurely rate; but at that it was conducted much more swiftly than most discussions in which Indians have taken part, for since the party had come to these heights they had sent back no word of how they were faring, and they dared not drag out the business to too great a length lest an expedition come after them. Such a development would effectually stop the negotiations and, in all probability, forever prevent their renewal.

General Howard told Cochise his purpose in coming to Arizona, and dwelt with emphasis on the fact that President Grant had sent him. The name of this famous warrior of the white men had weight with the leader of the Chiracahuas. If the man who led the armies of the great father to victory was behind this movement, he must at least respect the overtures. Howard went on to say that all the President wanted was peace with the Indians; to get them back on the reservation and to treat them fairly.

Cochise replied with a long statement of his own grievances beginning with the incident wherein Lieutenant Bascom was a main figure; he told of other cases wherein the white man had not shown up well. Many promises had been made to the Apaches but none had been kept. Still he was willing to go on with this thing; President Grant was a mighty warrior, and Captain Jeffords had vouched for his envoy's honesty.

Thus they sat within the rude shelter of boughs and skins, smoking and talking while the naked braves passed outside eying them through the doorway with sharp sidelong glances, and lean withered squaws cackled all day long among the vermin-ridden lodges about them.

Then Cochise announced that he and his people would go back to live upon a reservation and to eat the white man's rations--on certain conditions. The reservation must be in their own country; he named a portion of the Sulphur Springs valley and the adjoining Chiracahuas. And the agent must be Captain Jeffords.

There was justice in these conditions. The tribe had always roved over the country which Cochise named. As for the agent, it was a notorious fact that about nine-tenths of the Indian troubles originated through dishonesty of officials; either they were thieves or their friends were, which amounted to the same thing. And Jeffords was honest.

When General Howard had heard out the war-chief, he at once accepted the stipulations. President Grant had given him carte blanche in this matter; he was sure that he could keep his promises. But Captain Jeffords interposed an obstacle.

The last thing that he wanted was to be an Indian agent. The government owed him about twenty thousand dollars and if he took the office it would prevent his collecting the claims which were then under adjudication in Washington. Besides he well knew the political forces which were always working on an Indian agent, the strings which were being pulled in Washington, the various grafts, big and petty, to which one must shut his eyes if he wanted to remain in charge of a reservation. He stated his position.

Cochise remained firm. No agent other than Jeffords. That was his ultimatum. He would rather go on fighting until his people were extinct than to take them back and have them robbed. General Howard turned in appeal to the old-timer. And Captain Jeffords then capitulated--under conditions.

He would give up the hope of collecting the money which the government owed him and he would take charge of the new reservation. But if he did these things he must be in complete control. His word must be law and there must be no outside interference. If he gave the order, no white man--not even the commander of the United States army--could come within the boundaries of the district set apart for the Indians. Beyond his judgment there could be no appeal. He did not purpose to have matters taken to Washington over his head.

And, to make a long story short, General Howard not only consented to all of this, but he saw to it that President Grant confirmed his promises. He made a special trip to Washington and placed the matter before the nation's chief executive, who issued the necessary orders. And so late in 1872 Cochise and his people came back to the reservation.

That was not all, either. They lived there, during the lifetime of Cochise, in peace and quiet. There were thefts and there were cases of whisky-peddling with their inevitable accompaniments in the way of murder. There were times when the young men got restless; when passing Apaches from the White Mountains tried to induce the tribe to rise and leave the reservation with them, when medicine-men from these other clans preached bloody war.

But Cochise and Captain Thomas Jonathan Jeffords attended to all of these things as they came up. They ferreted out the criminals; they hunted down the whisky-peddlers; they drove the recalcitrant spirits from other tribes away and quelled the dissatisfaction which they had stirred up.

And because there was no appeal beyond their judgment; because no hungry politician could bring it about that his friends got the chance to swindle the Apaches or to rob them of their rations--as was being done with other Indians all over the West at the time--these two old men were able to enforce their edicts and to keep at peace the most warlike savages in the whole Southwest. They kept the faith with the government, those two; and they kept the faith with each other; and the friendship which had begun that day when Jeffords rode up into Cochise's stronghold, grew closer and closer.

That friendship never wavered until the day of Cochise's death. And when he knew that the end was coming he called for Jeffords, who was brought to his bedside. It was about two hours before noon.

"To-morrow at this time in the morning," Cochise said, "I will die. I want to say good-by to you."

They talked for some time over things that had happened in days gone by. And finally Cochise asked the old-timer whether he believed in a hereafter. Jeffords, like many another man, could only hope that there might be such a thing.

"Well," Cochise told him finally, "I believe that after I am gone I will see you again, my friend."

And those were their last words together. The next morning, at the hour which he had named, Cochise breathed his last.

ONE AGAINST MANY

Maybe you will get an insight into certain traits of the old-timers and so will find it easier to believe the facts set forth in this chronicle, if I begin with the tale of "Big Foot" Wallace.

Away back in the days before the Mexican War this Big Foot Wallace, lusty then and in his prime, was taking part in a bushwhacking expedition into Northern Chilhuahua; and his little company was captured by the soldiers of the southern republic. No one was losing any sleep in those parts over the laws of nations, and the officer commanding the victorious enemy was in a hurry to be moving on. Wherefore, like many another handful of Americans, the prisoners soon found themselves surrounding a jar within whose hidden depths were white and black beans, in number corresponding to their own.

The idea was that each man must draw his bean, and he who got a white one lived, while he who picked a black kernel was lined up with his luckless friends before the nearest wall and shot within an hour. Thus the Mexican commander intended to reduce by one-half the number of his prisoners, and at the same time afford his troops a little entertainment in witnessing the drama of the bean-picking.

There was in Big Foot Wallace's company a young fellow with a wife and children waiting for him back in Texas, and as the tattered group crowded around the jar to thrust their hands within and draw forth their different fates this soldier broke down. The thought of the woman and the babies was too much for him.

Big Foot Wallace had just plunged in his hand when the man began to sob. He glanced down at the white bean which his fingers clutched and turned to the stricken youth.

"Here," he whispered with an oath thrown in to show his indifference to the heroics, "take this, I'm feeling lucky to-day."

With which he turned over his precious bean and--proceeded to draw another white one.

The tale is told to this day by white-bearded men who maintain that it came to them from the lips of Big Foot Wallace. It has been used as the basis for at least one bit of fine fiction, but in its original form it illuminates for us of a later generation the characters of those extraordinary men who won the great Southwest away from the Apaches. They were, whenever occasion came, perfectly willing to take a long chance against ugly death. That willingness made every one of the old-timers a host in himself.

During the decades between the end of the Mexican War and the coming of the railroads these men drifted westward from the Rio Grande and the Pecos. A lean and sunburned crew, they came by saddle-horse and wagon, by thorough-brace Concord stage-coach and by bull team, dribbling into the long, thin valleys which reach northward from the Mexican border to the Gila River.

They found such spots as suited them; there they built their cabins, gouged their prospect-holes from the rocky hillsides, and dug the irrigation-ditches for their ranches. There were few settlements and these remote from one another; the military posts were so insufficiently garrisoned that the troopers had all they could do to look out for themselves; and the Apaches roamed unhindered whither the lust for plunder led them.

These savages had owned the valleys and the ragged mountain ranges between them. They saw the white men drifting in, in twos and threes; they saw the lonely camps and cabins, tenanted by little groups of settlers, beyond all reach of help; they saw the wagon-trains and stages traveling without convoys. Their chiefs were wily, their warriors past masters of the art of ambush. They started in to kill off the new-comers; and they undoubtedly would have succeeded in depopulating most of New Mexico and Arizona if it had not been for that one trait of which Big Foot Wallace furnishes an example.

Therein lies the key-note to the incidents within this little chronicle; the contemptuous disregard for danger, the willingness to take the supreme risk, which made those old-timers perform exploits that were seemingly impossible; which made them outface their naked enemies--who were always looking out for their own swarthy skins--and come forth unscathed from situations wherein death seemed the only means by which they could emerge; which made them win in many a grim fight where the odds were one man against many.

One man against many. That was the case with Uncle Billy Rhodes. Back in the early sixties he and his partner had taken up some land down in the Santa Cruz valley near the pueblo of Tubac. If you drive southward in your car to-day from Tucson you will pass the spot where Tubac stood until the Apaches laid waste the town during Civil War times, and go within a stone's throw of the place where Uncle Billy Rhodes ran one of the biggest and finest bluffs in all the history of Indian-fighting.

It was the custom of the Apaches to raid southward from their reservations into Mexico, scooping up such loot and lives as they could during their journeys. Usually at this particular time they traveled by way of the Santa Catalina Mountains, keeping well to the heights until they reached the Pantano Wash, where they frequently swooped down on the Butterfield stage-station before climbing to the summits of the Whetstones and the Huachucas. Clinging to the rocky ridges, they went on southward and watched the lowlands for signs of victims.

Such a war-party descended into the Santa Cruz valley one afternoon and found Billy Rhodes's partner alone at the ranch. When they got through with him there was little left in the semblance of a man, but they took good care to postpone burning the ranch-buildings, contenting themselves with promiscuous looting.

The idea was that smoke creates a warning signal and Uncle Billy Rhodes would never come within rifle-shot of the spot once he got sight of the ascending cloud. He was their meat; they possessed their souls in patience and settled down to await his home-coming.

Afternoon was waning and the first long shadows of early evening were beginning to steal across the plain from the base of the mountains when Uncle Billy rode his jaded pony down the faint wagon-track toward the ranch-house. He was weary from the saddle, for he had come a long distance that day--so long a distance that the horse was unfit for much more travel.

He passed his first rude fence and was within two hundred yards or so of the cabin when something made him pull up. He did not know what that something was; but the bronco added to his suspicions by its behavior. And then, while he was reconnoitering, an over-eager brave took a pot-shot at him.

The bullet missed, as most Apache bullets had a habit of doing. Next to the courage of the old-timers the utter inability of the North American Indian to grasp the necessity of pulling down his front sight was perhaps the largest factor that helped the white man to win the country west of the Mississippi River. Uncle Billy Rhodes whirled his pony and started back in the direction he had come from.

But the ponies of the Apaches were fresh from the rest they had enjoyed while their masters were prolonging the death agonies of Uncle Billy's partner. It took but a short time for the Indians to catch them up and within a minute or two something like fifty warriors, turbaned, naked from the waist up, were crowding their frenzied mounts in the wake of the fugitive.

The chase, as might have been expected, was a short one. Before he had gone a half-mile Uncle Billy saw that he was going to be overtaken. Already the savages were spreading out, and he could hear the yells of those who were drawing up on each side.

It was the proper time for a man to despair; but Uncle Billy was too busy looking about him for a point of vantage to indulge in any such emotion as that. He had an old-fashioned cap-and-ball revolver, all of whose chambers were loaded; and it was his intention to make those six bullets if possible account for six Apaches before he resigned himself to unkind fate.

The river-bed was close at hand; in places the road skirted the willow thickets which lined the stream. Before the fugitive a particularly thick clump of the green shrubs showed; all about it the ground was open. Uncle Billy hardly bothered to check his pony's lame gallop before casting himself bodily into the midst of this shelter. And thereafter the affair took on a different complexion.

The Apache was never foolhardy. Possessed of marvelous patience, he was willing to wait when waiting was the more prudent course of action. And in the beginning the pursuers, who had encircled the willow thicket, contented themselves with shooting from a distance where they could keep to cover.

But evening was growing on, and these savages were imbued with more superstitious fears of the dark than the members of most Indian tribes. It became evident that they must rush matters if they would go to camp before the night enwrapped them.

So the forty-odd came wriggling down the surrounding slopes toward the willow thicket, keeping as close to the earth as possible, striving to close in before they made their open charge. Uncle Billy waited until he got a good shot, and "turned loose" for the first time. A spattering of bullets answered his, but he had the satisfaction of seeing one naked form lying motionless on the hillside.

There came a yell, and now the Apaches showed themselves as they ran forward. The old revolver spoke again and then the third time. The charge broke in its inception; and the retreating enemy left two more of their number behind them when they went back to cover.

There followed an interval of silence. It was succeeded by another rush. Uncle Billy fired twice from the depths of his thicket, and both shots scored. The Apaches sought the rocks once more; but the old-timer lay among the willows with a broken elbow from one of their bullets. There was no time, nor were there means, for dressing the wound. He gritted his teeth, dug the elbow into the soft sand to stanch the flow of blood, and waited for the next onset.

It came within a few minutes, and Uncle Billy fired his last shot. The good luck which sometimes helps out a brave man in time of trouble saw to it that the ball from his revolver found the chief of the party. When they saw him fall the Indians retired in bad order.

And now, where force had failed them, the Apaches resorted to diplomacy. All they wanted was to get their hands on the white man, and a little lying might be the means to help them to it. In Spanish one of them called from his cover, bidding Uncle Billy give himself up as a prisoner. He had, the herald said, been so brave that they would observe the amenities of the white man's warfare; they would not harm a hair of his head. But if he refused they surely would come on this time and kill him.

To which Uncle Billy Rhodes replied profanely inviting them to make the charge.

"Because," he ended, "I'm plumb anxious to get some more of you."

And then he sat back biding their coming--with his empty revolver. But the silence continued uninterrupted; the shadows merged to dusk; twilight deepened to darkness. The Apaches had stolen away, and Uncle Billy Rhodes crept forth from the willows to catch up his horse and ride with his broken arm to Tucson, where he told the story.

Now there is no doubt what would have happened to Uncle Billy had he been gullible enough to believe that statement of the Apaches as to his personal safety in case of surrender. As a matter of cold fact neither Indian nor white man had any particular reason to look for favor or expect the truth from his enemy during this long struggle.

Just to get an idea of the relentlessness of their warfare it is worth while noting this incident in passing--one of those incidents which were never reported to Washington for the simple reason that Washington could never understand them.

A band of renegade Apaches had left the reservation to go a-plundering down in Mexico. A certain troop of cavalry was riding after them with the usual instructions from Washington to bring them back without bloodshed.

The captain of the troop was a seasoned Indian-fighter, and he managed to keep the fugitives moving so fast that they got next to nothing to eat. When you are traveling without rations along the ridges during an Arizona summer and there is no time to stop for hunting, no time to bake mescal roots; when you need every pony for riding and you have eaten the last lean dog; then bellies draw in and the ribs begin to stand out.

There were a number of squaws and children in the Apache outfit, and by the time the chase had been going on for two weeks or so with back-trackings, twistings and turnings, and every march a forced one, why then the pace of the fugitives began to slacken. And the troopers overtook them one fine day right out in the open where there was no opportunity for stand or ambush.

According to his instructions from the men who ran our Indian affairs in Washington, the captain of the troopers must bring these renegades back unharmed or face the necessity of making a great many explanations. So he drew up his men in formation and rode forward to parley with the half-starved savages. He rode right up to them, and their chief came forth to have a talk with him.

This captain was a fine figure of a man, and those who watched him say that he made a noble picture on his big troop-horse before the frowzy band whose gaunted members squatted in the bear-grass, their beady eyes glinting on him under their dirty turbans. And he was a good, persuasive talker. He promised them safe-conduct to the reservation and assured them that their truancy would be overlooked, were they to come back now.

He went on to tell of the rations which would be issued to them. He dwelt on that; he mentioned the leanness of their bodies and described at length the stores of food that were awaiting for them in the reservation warehouse.

And the words of the captain were beginning to have an effect. There was a stirring among the warriors and a muttering; men glanced at their squaws and the squaws looked at their children. The captain went on as if unconscious that his eloquence was bearing fruit.

All the time he was speaking a girl just grown to womanhood kept edging toward him. In the days when food was plenty she must have owned a savage sort of beauty; but her limbs were lank now and her cheeks were wasted. Her eyes were overlarge from fasting as they hung on the face of the big captain.

So she stood at last in the very forefront of her people, quite unconscious that other eyes were watching her. And behind her her people stirred more and more uneasily; they were very hungry.

Under the hot, clear sky the troopers sat in their saddles, silent, waiting. The lieutenant who had been left in charge watched the little drama. He saw how the moment of the crisis was approaching; how just one little movement in the right direction, one word perhaps, would turn the issue. He saw the half-starved girl leaning forward, her lips parted as she listened to the big captain. He saw an old squaw, wrinkled and toothless, venom in her eyes, crouching beside the hungered girl.

Suddenly the girl took an eager step forward. As if it were a signal a full half of the band started in the same direction.

And just then with the turning of the scales, just as the captain's eloquence was winning, the old squaw sprang to her feet. She whirled an ax over her head and brought it down upon the girl. And before the body had fallen to the earth a warrior leveled his rifle and shot the captain through the heart.

The lieutenant started to turn toward his troopers. But he never had a chance to give his order. The whole blue-clad band was charging on a dead run. What followed did not take long. There was not a single prisoner brought back to the reservation.

When men are warring in that relentless spirit, no one who is blessed with the ordinary amount of reasoning power looks for mercy even if it be promised. And Uncle Billy Rhodes did well to run his bluff down there in the willows by the river.

Sometimes, however, the Apaches felt themselves forced to show respect for their dead enemies. There was, for instance, the short-card man from Prescott. Felix was his name; the surname may be chronicled somewhere for all the writer knows; it ought to be. A short-card gambler, and that was not all; men say that he had sold whisky to the Indians, that he was in partnership with a band of stock-rustlers, and that on occasion he had been known to turn his hand to robbery by violence. In fact there is no good word spoken of his life up to the time when the very end came.

In Prescott he owned none of that friendship which a man craves from his fellows; respect was never bestowed upon him. He walked the streets of that frontier town a moral pariah.

Those who associated with him--those who made their living by dubious means--looked up to him with an esteem born only of hard-eyed envy for his prosperity. For he was doing well, as the saying goes; making good money.

Felix had managed to find a wife, a half-breed Mexican woman; and she had borne him children, two or three of them. He had a ranch some distance from the town, and many cattle.

And on the great day of his life, the day when he became glorious, he was driving from the ranch to Prescott with his family: a two-horse buckboard and Felix at the reins; the woman and the children bestowed beside him and about him.

Somewhere along the road the Apaches "jumped" them, to use the idiom of those times. A mounted band and on their way across-country, they spied the buckboard and started after it. The road was rough; the half-broken ponies weary; and the renegades gained at every jump. Felix plied the whip and kept his broncos to the dead run until their legs were growing heavy under them and the run slackened to a lumbering gallop.

Prescott was only a few miles away. They reached a place where the road ran between rocky banks, a place where there was no going save by the wagon-track.

Felix slipped his arm around his wife and kissed her. It was perhaps the first time he had done it in years; one can easily believe that. He kissed the children.

"Whip 'em up," he bade the woman. "I'll hold the road for you."

And he jumped off of the buckboard with his rifle and sixteen rounds of ammunition.

In Prescott the woman told the story and a relief party rode out within a half-hour. They found the body of the short-card man and stock-thief with the bodies of fourteen Indians sprinkled about among the rocks. And the surviving Apaches, instead of mutilating the remains of their dead enemy as was their custom on such occasions, had placed a bandanna handkerchief over his face, weighting down its corners with pebbles lest the wind blow it away.

It was near Prescott--only four miles below the village--that a woman fought Apaches all through a long September afternoon. The Hon. Lewis A. Stevens was in town attending a session of the Territorial Legislature and his wife was in charge of the ranch near the Point of Rocks that day in 1867. A hired man was working about the place.

One hundred yards away from the house an enormous pile of boulders rose toward the nearer hills. Beneath some of the overhanging rocks were great caves, and the depressions between the ridges gave hiding-places to shelter scores of men.

Shortly after noon Mrs. Stevens happened to look from the window of the kitchen where she was at work. Something was moving behind a clump of spiked niggerheads between the back door and the corrals; at first glance it looked like a dirty rag stirring in the wind, but when the woman had held her eyes on it a moment she saw, among the bits of rock and the thorny twigs with which it had been camouflaged, the folds of an Apache warrior's head-gear.

Now as she stepped back swiftly from the window toward the double-barreled shotgun which was a part of her kitchen furnishings and always hung conveniently among the pots and pans, she caught sight of more turbans there in her back yard. With the consummate patience of their kind some twenty-odd Apaches had been spending the last hour or so wriggling along the baked earth, keeping to such small cover as they could find as they progressed inch by inch from the boulder hill toward the ranch-house.

The majority of the savages were still near the pile of rocks when Mrs. Stevens threw open her kitchen door and gave the warrior behind the niggerheads one load of buckshot; and the more venturesome among them who had been following their luckless companion's lead broke back to that shelter at the moment she fired. Fortunately the hired man was out in the front and the roar of the shotgun brought him into the house on a run. By this time more than twenty Apaches were firing from the hill; the tinkling of broken glass from the windows and the buzzing of bullets was filling the intervals between the banging of their rifles.

Like most Arizona ranch-houses in those days, the place was a rather well-equipped arsenal. By relaying each other at loading Mrs. Stevens and the hired man managed to hold down opposite sides of the building. Thus they repelled two rushes; and when the enemy made an attempt to reach the corrals and run off the stock, they drove them back to their hillside a third time.

The battle lasted all the afternoon until a neighbor by the name of Johnson who had heard the firing came with reenforcements from his ranch. That evening after the savages had vanished for good Mrs. Stevens sent a message into Prescott to her husband.

"Send me more buckshot. I'm nearly out of it," was what she wrote.

During the late sixties and the seventies the stage-lines had a hard time of it, what with Apaches driving off stock and ambushing the coaches along the road. There were certain stations, like those at the Pantano Wash and the crossing of the San Pedro, whose adobe buildings were all pitted with bullet-marks from successive sieges; and at these lonely outposts the arrival of the east or west bound mail was always more or less of a gamble.

Frequently the old thorough-brace Concord would come rattling in with driver or messenger missing; and on such occasions it was always necessary to supply the dead man's place for the ensuing run. Yet willing men were rarely lacking, and an old agent tells how he merely needed to wave a fifty-dollar bill in the faces of the group who gathered round at such a time to secure a new one to handle the reins.

In those days an Indian fight wasn't such a great matter if one bases his opinion on the way the papers handled one of them in their news columns. Judge by this paragraph from the "Arizonian," August 27, 1870:

On Thursday, August 18, the mail buggy from the Rio Grande had
come fifteen miles toward Tucson from the San Pedro crossing when
the driver, the messenger, and the escort of two soldiers were
killed by Apaches. The mail and stage were burned. Also there is
one passenger missing who was known to have left Apache Pass with
this stage.