“Fight to a finish, or a surrender, b’gosh,” announced Frank, to-day. “Chiricahuas can take their choice. But the old man’s goin’ after ’em. We’ll have no murderin’ an’ boy-stealin’ in this department. Everybody, man an’ mule, is ordered to meet him at Willcox, pronto (quick). So this outfit’ll hit the high places in the mornin’.”
Jimmie and the other packers at San Carlos, where they had been waiting prepared, gave a cheer. It was now the first week in April. The killing of Judge McComas and Mrs. McComas, and the stealing of little Charley, had occurred on March 28. Chato had escaped into Mexico again, having lost only one warrior, except——
“Did you hear tell thar’s a Chiricahua buck been fetched in who claims he broke from the Chato bunch ’cause he wants peace?” queried Long Jim Cook.
“No. Where is he?”
“In the guard-house. They got him locked up till the old man talks with him. His name is ‘Peaches,’ or somethin’ like that.”
“Mebbe he brings some sort o’ word from Geronimo. You know the old man sent one of those squaws that he captured, back down, last fall, to tell the Geronimo band they’d better change their minds.”
Jimmie asked Micky Free.
“He is not a Chiricahua,” said Micky. “He is a White Mountain, but he married two Chiricahua squaws, so he had to live with the Chiricahua. His name is Pa-na-yo-tish-n (Coyote-saw-him). He does not like the Chiricahua, now. They are living in the mountains five days’ travel from Arizona. They have plenty wood, plenty water, plenty grass, plenty meat, and kill plenty Mexican soldiers with rocks because they must save cartridges. That is why Chato made his raid up north: to get cartridges. Pa-na-yo-tish-n ran away. He says he does not want to fight, and there are others who do not want to fight, but they are afraid of Geronimo. He knows the trail to Geronimo, and will lead the general straight. Then maybe we talk, maybe we fight. It will be a good fight, Cheemie. Geronimo has seventy men, and fifty big boys who can fight like men. Yes, if they have powder, and do not get starved, and the talk is bad, we will see much fun. I think that even the packers will better watch out sharp.”
Micky Free always had hopes. He was a regular fire-eater.
The cavalry from Fort Apache, and the pack-train, and about one hundred Apache scouts from the San Carlos and the White Mountain reservations marched across country to Willcox. Pa-na-yo-tish-n (whom the soldiers and packers called “Peaches”) was taken along, as a prisoner, in handcuffs.
Willcox, the nearest station on the Southern Pacific Railroad, just west of Railroad Pass over the Chiricahua Mountains, was overflowing.
The Camp Thomas troops had arrived; so had those from Fort Bowie, to the southeast. By train other troops, and horses and mules, and ammunition and supplies of all kinds were pouring in. The general and his staff were here. So were Charley Hopkins and “Short Jim” Cook and others of the old-time packers; and Archie MacIntosh and Al Sieber, the chief scouts; and Antonio Besias the interpreter; yes, and Maria Jilda.
It was a great reunion of Crook men.
Reports said that the United States and Mexico had arranged to pursue Indians into each other’s territory, but the United States troops were not to cross the boundary before May 1. In order to make certain that this was understood, the general traveled by the Mexican Central Railroad into the northern Mexican States and talked with the commanding officers there.
When he returned he talked again with “Peaches.” “Peaches” stuck to his story, and when the general directed that the irons be removed from him, “Peaches” said that he was willing to wear them until it was shown that he had spoken only the truth. But the irons were taken off anyway, because Alchisé and other scouts engaged to watch him very closely.
On April 22 there was a parade, and inspection of the whole outfit. That night the Apache scouts held a big war-dance which lasted until morning. They and Micky (who had danced as hard as anybody) were still hot and excited when the column was formed for the advance.
The scouts, and pack-mules, and a line of rumbling army wagons, and portions of seven companies of the Third and Sixth Cavalry, marched from the railroad to the boundary at San Bernardino Springs in southeastern Arizona, one hundred miles by the wagon trail.
Stalwart Captain Emmet Crawford brought in one hundred more Apache scouts from San Carlos. There were war-dances and medicine ceremonies each night. Alchisé and others told the general that their medicine was showing up very strong; the Chiricahuas would surely be found and killed or captured.
“That is so,” asserted Micky, who believed in the medicine.
Six of the cavalry troops were to be left here at the border, to guard it and the wagons with the extra supplies.
“Adios, amigo,” bade Maria, to Jimmie. “You will have good luck. The medicine says so, and Pa-na-yo-tish-n will lead Crook straight. But it will be a long march, maybe two hundred miles.”
“Aren’t you going, Maria?”
“No. I stay, because I know all this country.”
It did not look like a very great force, after all, which at sunrise of May 1, this 1883, crossed the border to find Geronimo. There were more Indians than soldiers—one hundred and ninety-three of them, White Mountains, Tontos, Yavapais, Apache-Yumas and some of the Taza friendly Chiricahuas.
Captain Crawford, of the Third Cavalry, commanded them. He had as his assistants Lieutenant George Gatewood and Lieutenant W. W. Forsythe, of the Sixth, and Lieutenant James O. Mackay, of the Third.
The forty cavalrymen of the Sixth (less than half a company) were commanded by Major Adna R. Chaffee and Lieutenant Frank West.
The general’s staff was Captain Bourke, and Lieutenant G. J. Febiger of the Engineers. Doctor Andrews was surgeon. Archie MacIntosh and Al Sieber were chief scouts. Micky, and old Severiano the Mexican who had been brought up by the Apaches, and Packer Sam Bowman were interpreters.
The pack-masters of the five pack-trains were Frank Monach, Charley Hopkins, of Tucson, “Long Jim” Cook and “Short Jim” Cook, and George Stanfield.
“One blanket and forty rounds of ammunition to each man,” were the orders. The mules carried additional ammunition and sixty days’ rations of hard-tack, coffee and bacon. Everybody was well armed with the Springfield forty-fives, and Colt’s revolvers; even the packers had carbines and pistols.
Plainly enough, the general was outward bound on business!
“U-ga-shé (U-gah-shay)!” barked Lieutenant Gatewood, at the scouts. And away they went, afoot, in their red head-bands and flapping shirts and leggin-moccasins, across the boundary, with Alchisé and “Peaches” in the lead, as guides. They all spread out in a broad front, to cover the country. Their officers rode just behind, with Archie MacIntosh and Sieber the Iron Man.
The general and aides and cavalry escort followed. Then there ambled the long files of pack-trains—Frank Monach’s first. A guard of the cavalry closed the rear.
The “good-by” and “good luck” cheers of the border guard died in the distance. The march to “get” Geronimo, Nah-che and the other Chiricahuas had actually begun.
At first about twenty-five miles a day were covered. But the country grew rougher and hotter. Only two or three of the Mexican villages were inhabited; many others were deserted and in ruins, on account of the Chiricahuas. The brush along the streams was thick, the flowers were large and bright. High, bluish mountains loomed on right and left and before.
It was fine Apache country, all right—and “Peaches” was leading straight into it, for within a few days fresh moccasin tracks might be seen frequently.
“To-morrow for the Sierra Madre,” said Frank Monach, in camp on the night of May 7. “Then we’ll be hangin’ on by our toe-nails. What I’d like to know is, whether Geronimo’ll wait for us or whether he’ll keep a-goin’ himself.”
The huge jumble of the Sierra Madre range frowned directly before. It certainly appeared mighty rough. No white men had yet ventured to penetrate far into the Sierra Madre; but the general was determined, as Al Sieber said, “to open it up.”
He was so anxious, that this night the march had continued until after eleven o’clock, and camp had been made without fires, in the bottom of a deep canyon. So dark it was that even the mules lost their places.
The climb of the first flanks of the Sierra Madre was begun at daylight. The trail that led out of the canyon was littered with plunder—torn letters, Mexican dresses, scattered flour, and beef carcasses. It was so steep that several of the mules fell off, and landed one hundred feet below, in a canyon. But they were not hurt.
The Chiricahua sign became more plentiful. “Peaches” said that Geronimo’s real stronghold was still several days’ march before, but that this was as far as the Mexican soldiers ever had got. The Chiricahuas had ambushed them and driven them back.
To-night everybody except the scouts was very tired. Jimmie ached from head to foot; the job of forcing the mules on was the hardest work of all.
“Come, Cheemie,” invited Micky. “You come with me and you will see big medicine made.”
Jimmie groaned, and hobbled after Micky Free.
What with chasing deer and turkeys and rabbits, to eat, and hunting the Chiricahuas, the scouts had been having a great time. They had never been too tired to dance and yarn; to-night their medicine-men were to find the Chiricahuas for them.
The officers messed with the packers and scouts; it was all one family. The general and Captain Bourke had joined the Monach mess, where Alchisé and other principal scouts ate, too. So the general and the captain were admitted to the circle of the medicine-making.
The chief medicine-man lay in a trance while the lesser medicine-men squatted around him and sang. Soon he thumped his chest and spoke, telling his dream.
“Keet,” the Apache boy who carried the medicine things and was in training for a medicine-man, himself, translated for the general and Captain Bourke.
“What did he say?” asked the captain. “The general wishes to know.”
“He say: ‘Me can’t see ’um Chilicahua yet. Bimeby me see ’um. Me ketch ’um, me kill ’um. Me no ketch ’um, me no kill ’um. Chilicahua see me, me no get ’um. No see me, me ketch ’um. Me see ’um little bit now. Mebbe so six day me ketch ’um; mebbe so two day. Tomollow me send twenty-fibe men to hunt ’um tlail. Mebbe so tomollow see ’um more. Me ketch ’um hoss, me ketch ’um mool, me ketch ’um cow. Ketch Chilicahua pretty soon, bimeby. Kill ’um heap, an’ ketch ’um squaw.’”
That impressed the scouts. They were sure of success.
The signs grew fresher and fresher, and the trail worse and worse. But abandoned rancherias were found—and they had not been abandoned long, either! The eager scouts fairly ran hither-thither, searching and signaling; the cavalry-men toiled afoot, leading their horses; and the pack-mules, urged on by Jimmie and the other packers, coughed and slipped and sweat, and six of them rolled a thousand feet and were dashed to pieces.
But the general showed no token of quitting. He was after Geronimo.
Now it was the night of May 10. In the morning Captain Crawford and his scouts were going ahead, by themselves. Alchisé had insisted that this was the only way to do. He complained to the general that the soldiers and the pack-trains were too slow, to catch the Chiricahuas.
Frank Monach came into camp from a reconnoiter with a few of the soldiers and the huskier packers. Jimmie could not go. His leg was rather bad.
“B’gosh, we found where a passel o’ Mexicans had been wiped out with rocks an’ arrows an’ lances,” announced Frank. “Over yonder in the foothills. They must have come in from the other side.”
This night the scouts were very busy, making medicine and mending moccasins and preparing meat and bread.
“Medicine man say ‘Kill ’um heap Chilicahua, three day from tomollow,’” declared young “Keet,” proud of his English words.
Early in the morning one hundred and fifty of the scouts, with Captain Crawford and Lieutenant Gatewood and Lieutenant Mackay, Archie MacIntosh, Al Sieber, and Micky and Severiano and Sam Bowman, hastened ahead.
They were to fight and to surround, and try to hold the Chiricahuas until the soldiers arrived. The dismounted cavalry and the pack-trains followed at best speed, again into the heart of the high country.