“Now Apache catch Apache,” announced Micky.
It was a sharply chill evening, December 27, this 1872, and under a clouded sky the whole Major Brown command were encamped together in the little canyon of Cottonwood Creek, about seventy-five miles northwest of Camp Grant.
Not far west rose the long, high plateau of the Mazatzal or Four Peaks Range, through which the Salt River cut a deep, crooked trail toward Camp MacDowell on the other side.
But the seventy-five miles was only a small portion of the distance that had been covered. The Major Brown column out of Grant had been marching north, west, south, and north again, for more than a month; sometimes in cactus and sunshine, sometimes in snow and storm, ever trying to corral the Chuntz and Delt-che outlaws.
These were hard to find. In this rough canyon country they had made their homes for years and years. They knew every inch of it. Only the Sierra Blanca scouts, who were afoot, in silent moccasins, and kept a day’s march ahead, had had any luck. Twice they had struck small rancherias; and they had killed four or five warriors.
Micky hunted with the scouts, daytimes; and each night, when in camp, he had great stories to tell. It all was a lark, to Micky the red-head. He had captured a rifle, in one of the Chuntz jacals or huts, and now was very happy. He seemed rather to pity Jimmie, who was held to the plodding, scrambling pack-train, at the rear.
Still, duty was duty, and business was business; and the pack-train was as important as the soldiers or the scouts. Without the pack-train, then the expedition needs must quit or starve—and what would General Crook say?
On Christmas Day forty men of Company G, Fifth Cavalry, commanded by Captain “Jimmie” Burns and Lieutenant Earl D. Thomas, with pack-train and almost one hundred Pima Indian scouts, all from Camp MacDowell, had joined.
They’d had some luck. On the top of the Four Peaks they had surprised a Yavapai rancheria (one of Delt-che’s, they thought), had killed six Indians and captured a squaw and a little boy. They had brought the boy along, because he could kill quail with stones and with bow and arrow. His new name was “Mike.”
Only Nan-ta-je could understand much that Mike said. The Yavapai language was different from straight Apache. And why Nan-ta-je understood Yavapai, Jimmie presently found out.
This evening of December 27, two days after the Captain Burns column had been met, something evidently was up. Patron Jack had received orders from Major Brown to park his mules in close, along a picket line, “in a place easy of defence.” That was one hint.
“‘Find heap Injuns, poco tiempo (in little while),’ those scouts keep sayin’, do they?” grumbled Jack. “Humph! Looks like ‘heap Injuns’ might be goin’ to find us, mebbe!”
And now as Jimmie, having finished his duties for the evening, made way through the early dusk to look up Micky and listen to the stories of the scouts, he noted that Major Brown and the six officers and Chief Guide Archie MacIntosh were in a group around a little fire, talking low with one another.
The soldiers, wrapped in their cavalry overcoats, huddled also, in messes, smoking and joking. They might have been waiting for the time to roll in their blankets, but somehow they all seemed to be waiting for something else.
A little apart from the cavalry camp was the scouts’ camp; Chief Big Mouth’s White Mountains in one place, the Pimas in another. The Apaches certainly knew how to make themselves comfortable. They stuffed their moccasins with dry grass, to keep their feet warmer, and slept two or three together in snug beds among the rocks.
This evening they were having an especially good time. They were roasting and eating pieces of a mule that had died from poison. Micky was squatting and tearing at a chunk, like the rest of them, near one of their little fires.
With greasy mouth he grinned amiably as Jimmie approached to squat beside him.
“Come and eat, Boy-who-sleeps,” he greeted, in Apache.
“I have eaten. I am full,” explained Jimmie. Poisoned mule was rather more than he could stomach, although when with the Chiricahuas he had eaten almost anything.
“It is well to be full,” said Micky, chewing hard. “We may not eat again for a long time.”
“Why, Red-head?”
“Because,” asserted Micky, changing to Mexican-Spanish, “now Apache catch Apache. We start soon. If you want to go, you had better be getting ready.”
“Where are they? How do you know?” demanded Jimmie.
Micky swallowed a large mouthful of mule meat, and held his chunk in the coals again, with a sharpened stick.
“I know,” he said. “Soon all the soldiers will know, so I will tell you what I could not tell you before. Cluke knew, when we left Camp Grant. He had talked with Bocon (which was Spanish for Big Mouth), and with Nan-ta-je. Major Brown knew, too. But it has been a secret. We are here to fight Delt-che’s Yavapai where they have hidden in the Four Peaks above the Salt River. Nan-ta-je was brought up, there, when he was a boy. It is a big cave, in the face of the canyon made by the Salt River. It is reached by a secret trail from above. Nan-ta-je knows the trail. He told Bocon and Bocon told the Gray Fox, and they arranged, at Camp Grant. First we were to chase Chuntz, who had killed your Francisco. That has been done, and he has got away. Now we will follow Nan-ta-je to the cave of the Delt-che people.”
“How far, Micky?” breathlessly asked Jimmie.
Micky proceeded to gnaw his meat chunk, hot though it was.
“A night’s march, over the mountains along the Salt River. We start as soon as a bright star rises over the hills in the east. The soldiers must leave their horses, and all wear moccasins, to make no noise, and must get there before daylight. If we are discovered on the trail, we will be killed, every one of us. Nobody can escape, then. That is what Bocon and Nan-ta-je say, and they know. It will be a fine fight, anyway. The Yavapai will be in their cave, behind a rock wall across its mouth, and we will be on a flat place outside, in front; and those who fall off will land, in the river, far below. Yes. That is why I came, to see. You must run off from your pack-mules and be there, too, Cheemie.”
“No, I won’t run off, but I’ll ask, you bet!” exclaimed Jimmie, jumping up.
“Inju (good)!” grunted Micky, gulping fast, to finish his chunk. “You and I will stay with the White Mountains. They will fight. But I don’t think much of these Pimas. Whenever one is killed, the rest stop fighting and make medicine.”
Jimmie hustled back. He was all on fire to go. It sounded as though it was to be a fight that a fellow would hate to miss.
A change had come over the camp. The cavalry detachments were astir. The non-commissioned officers were passing among the squads, inspecting equipment; in the glow of the fires the men were donning moccasins, overhauling their stubby fifty-calibre Springfield carbines, and stuffing their cartridge-belts, worn outside their blue overcoats, with the brass cartridges distributed from the green ammunition-boxes lugged by the pack-train.
The officers’ council had broken up; the captains and lieutenants were with their companies; Archie MacIntosh and Joe Felmer strode briskly through, for the scouts. Jimmie seized upon Joe.
“Joe! Can I go? I want to go!”
“Whar?”
“To see the fight at the cave!”
“What cave? How do you know about any cave? You must have been with that pesky Micky Free ag’in. Wall, you keep yore mouth shut about a cave. No, I don’t say you can go. You aren’t under my orders. You’re with the pack outfit. Don’t bother me.”
And away hastened Joe, following Archie. Away hastened Jimmie, likewise, to find Jack Long.
All the cavalry horses had been tied to a picket rope, near the mules, against the canyon side. The riggings and the packs were being piled as a breastwork—the task had been almost completed—old Jack and Frank Monach and Jim O’Neill and Blacksmith John Cahill and even Slim Shorty were standing armed and ready—evidently the packers were to join the cavalrymen—hurrah, the pack men were to be in the fight!
“Say, whar you been?” accused Jack. “Now you stay——”
“Oh, Jack, can I go? I want to go, Jack! Please can I go?” pleaded Jimmie.
“Seems to me you’re alluz wantin’ to ‘go’ some’ers,” growled Jack. “You ask Joe Felmer. He’s yore gardeen.”
“I did ask him and he said I wasn’t with him, I was with the pack outfit; and the pack outfit’s going, isn’t it?” argued Jimmie.
“Best part of it,” admitted Jack. “Orders from the major are for every able-bodied man to march out, an’ for those who can’t climb to guard the animals an’ packs, hyar. Dunno which’ll be the dangerouser place, in case the Injuns try a stampede.”
“Oh, let him go; he’s earned it, I reckon,” spoke up “Long Jim” Cook gruffly. “He can stick beside o’ me. (Long Jim being six feet eight!) Then all the bullets’ll fly so high he won’t even feel the wind of ’em.”
“I’ll be up in front with Micky Free. Micky and I can scout as well as any Apache,” panted Jimmie. “We won’t be hurt.” He turned, to make off again, but Jack sternly halted him.
“You do as the rest do, then: put on a blanket-roll an’ stick in some grub, an’ change yore feet into moccasins.”
That took only a few moments, for a boy in a hurry. Slim Shorty the cook good-naturedly supplied the moccasins; the blanket-roll was made up in a jiffy, around a wad of bread and cold meat, and was slung over Jimmie’s left shoulder——
“If ’twasn’t Micky Free I wouldn’t let you go,” warned Jack. “But nothin’ yet invented can harm him, so if you jest hang onto his shirt-tail he’ll take you through!”
This time Jimmie got away, but none too soon, for the soldier column was forming, to low commands. The fires had died down, darkness had closed in, and he scurried fast, through the gloom. The scouts were bunched—Apaches together, and Pimas together—standing, wrapped in their blankets, waiting. Beyond them, somebody struck a match. The flame lighted the face of Nan-ta-je and of Major Brown, who was looking at his watch.
Jimmie, pausing and peering, felt a hand on his arm and heard Micky’s voice, under breath. Micky could see in the dark.
“Inju. Star nearly up. Before sun is up, big fight.”
Nan-ta-je’s star must have appeared at that very moment, for Major Brown struck another match, to show his hand raised as signal, he and Nan-ta-je moved forward, the scouts moved, pressing in the wake of Archie MacIntosh, and Joe, and Tony Besias, there were gruff orders, half whispers, from the sergeants, to the soldiers; and amidst soft shuffle of moccasins the whole long column followed the lead of the major and Nan-ta-je, presently up out of the little canyon, for the high mesa or table-land above.
Whew, but the December night was growing cold! The clouds had broken, the stars were very bright, faintly illumining the dark winding column, and the frosty breaths wafting from it. Scarce a sound, except the scuff of the moccasins, could be heard. The United States cavalry in Arizona did not carry sabers when scouting for Apaches; and to-night even the canteens had been stowed in the blanket rolls, lest they jingle.
According to the north star the course was westerly. Nan-ta-je and the major led at a rapid pace, to keep the men warm. Jimmie stuck close by Micky. He had no fear of not being able to hold his own. He trotted loose-kneed, toeing in, head up, breathing through his nose, Apache way.
Trudge, trudge, scuff, scuff, hour after hour, as seemed, westward across the high, rough mesa where the snow lay in patches and the Four Peaks of the Mazatzal rose close on the right. To the left was the canyon of the Salt River.
The Apache scouts forged ahead of the cavalry. Along after midnight, from a little rise sign was seen away off, before. Lights! Major Brown and Nan-ta-je had halted.
“Come! Quick!” hissed Micky, he and Jimmie trotting faster. “Camp-fires. Maybe Yavapai.”
“Column, halt! Lie down, men,” sounded the low gruff order, behind.
Down flopped everybody, except Archie MacIntosh and Joe Felmer, and half a dozen of the scouts with them, who continued on rapidly. Micky slipped after, like a shadow; he did not intend to miss anything.
Jimmie had dropped in the van of the other scouts, near to the major and Nan-ta-je. They and Chief Big Mouth and Bobby Do-klinny were crouched under a blanket.
“Nan-ta-je step in track. Think it man track,” grunted, in Apache, the Indian beside Jimmie. Queer how the Apaches seemed to know everything! And Nan-ta-je had merely felt the track, through his moccasin sole!
Under the blanket the major—or somebody—struck another match. Just the faint crackle told. The little group examined the track, there was short muttering; then the crouchers relaxed and quit, and waited. Big Mouth crept back.
“Shosh (Bear),” he informed.
Nan-ta-je had been fooled, but a bear track is very much like a moccasin track.
Nobody spoke again. If anyone even coughed, from the cold air, he did so with his mouth pressed against his blanket. Jimmie shivered with the cold and the excitement.
Now here came Archie and Joe and their squad, trotting back from their reconnoitering. Archie reported to Major Brown and Nan-ta-je.
“Yavapai fires,” whispered Micky, sinking beside Jimmie. “Pony herd, too. Four wickyups. No Yavapai. Left wickyups and ponies, little while ago. Maybe go to tell Delt-che.”
That looked bad.
“Huh!” grunted a White Mountain. “We go to surprise Yavapai. If Yavapai know and surprise us, we all get killed, says Nan-ta-je.”
“What ponies?” asked somebody, of Micky.
“Pima and undah (white-man) ponies. Traveled far. Feet worn out.”
In their cavalry capes Captain Taylor and Lieutenant Bourke stole forward, stooping. They had been sent for to consult with Major Brown, Archie MacIntosh, and Nan-ta-je and Chief Big Mouth. Pretty soon they went back. The march was resumed, toward the fires. The column had spread out, ready to defend itself, but the White Mountain scouts kept ahead. Chief Owl Ears’ Pimas were behind with the Captain Burns company.
The fires were still glowing at the Yavapai camp on the top of the mesa, in a hollow where there were grass and water for the stolen ponies. But save for the snorts of the ponies, all was silence. The march had been made cautiously, and now the air had thinned; in the east the sky had lightened. Morning was at hand.
“Yavapai cave near,” whispered Micky. The word had been passed along, somehow. The march was halted again. Teeth chattered.
Next, Lieutenant Ross continued, with Archie and Joe and Nan-ta-je, a dozen cavalrymen and the packers Jack Long, Jim O’Neill, Long Jim Cook, Frank Monach, Slim Shorty—dead shots all, and fine Indian fighters. Nan-ta-je led.
Captain Burns and Lieutenant Thomas, with their cavalrymen and most of the Pimas, branched off on the back trail of the pony herd, to the southeast. More Yavapai might be coming, from that direction, with other booty.
The remainder of the column followed Lieutenant Ross. The White Mountains had dropped their blankets about their waists, as if clearing for action. Their faces were set alert, their nostrils flared, they were straining every sense, to detect more “sign.” Micky pointed downward; underfoot was a regular trail, disclosed in the gray light.
Their carbines and rifles at a trail, the Lieutenant Ross detachment, led by Nan-ta-je, with Archie and Joe at his heels, had dipped out of sight, as if over an edge. The last one of them disappeared. The faint roar of rapid waters sounded.
“Canyon of Salt River there,” whispered Micky. “Yavapai cave, too.”
The crack of the canyon began to open—across were the opposite walls. Cold mist was floating up. The trail conducted to the canyon, and down. Major Brown and Captain Taylor and Lieutenant Bourke, with Tony Besias the interpreter, Chief Big Mouth and others went forward to peer in. As the column bunched, everybody tried to peer in. Micky craned forward, with the scouts—he and Alchisé and Bobby Do-klinny; Jimmie edged on; they all might look over the rim, for the officers were as curious as the rest.
The roar of the waters rose louder. The river was far down, hundreds of feet, at the bottom of a long crooked gorge with precipice walls. Icicles hung from the crags. The trail entered, here, and clinging to the niches and wearing away the sod of the few flat spots snaked at a diagonal until, descending, it rounded a shoulder one hundred yards below the rim, where the mists were wreathing.
It was as steep as the trail down which those Tontos had scampered, into the Tonto Basin! Nobody was on it. The Ross party had gone.
“Mescal,” whispered Micky, sniffing. All the scouts were sniffing. A sweetish scent was in the air, as if welling from below.
Apache mescal pits! Wood smoke, too! Smell it?
“Huh! Rancheria there,” grunted Bobby Do-klinny. “Close to Delt-che, now. Where Nan-ta-je?”
Then——
“Bang-g-g-g-g-g!”
The noise, echoing through the canyon depths and striking the faces gazing in, fairly deafened. It sounded like a regiment, but it was only a volley by the Lieutenant Ross party, unseen.
The little handful of advance guard had found the Yavapai!