One hundred and twenty Chiricahuas under Geronimo, Chihuahua, old Nana and Nah-che were the ones who had run away. Chato had persuaded the three hundred other Chiricahuas to stay. He did not approve of Geronimo and Nah-che, or of further war.
The outbreak had occurred on the night of May 17. The Chiricahuas had left in parties of twenty or so, to meet again across the border. Lieutenant Britton Davis, of the Third Cavalry, had been in charge at the reservation. As soon as he had discovered the loss, he had tried to telegraph General Crook; but the “talking wires” had been damaged. Before the message got through, the Chiricahuas were beyond the railroad, with a clear field ahead.
Nah-che had spoken truly when he said to Jimmie that they ran away because they feared being locked up. They knew that they were watched. And in defiance of the general’s complaints that liquor was manufactured upon the reservation, they had obtained a quantity of it and drunk it—which of course made them liable to punishment.
The general came over to the reservation too late; but flying columns had been sent out at once, from Apache and Thomas and Grant and Bowie. Two hundred scouts from all the reservation bands were enlisted for six months. Chato himself volunteered.
The columns dispatched were mainly for the purpose of keeping the Chiricahuas away from the border until it might be patrolled, and the principal band located by either the American or the Mexican troops.
Meanwhile as a crack pack-master Jimmie was decidedly busy at Fort Bowie. Bowie had waxed to a bustling supply depot, and was likely to be headquarters field base.
Tom Moore, who had been up north in the Department of the Platte, was sent for by the general to be chief packer again in the Department of Arizona. He brought down from Cheyenne, Wyoming, the best of the Platte pack-mules, and was given a great welcome at Bowie by Jimmie and the other “old-timers.”
The country was being scoured for good mules. These had to be broken, some of them, and distributed. Troops were pouring in, until the general had at his disposal forty companies of infantry and the same of cavalry.
He was planning surely. He directed that heliograph stations, for the purpose of telegraphing by mirrored sun-flashes, be established upon hill-tops all along on both sides of the border. Then he went to Washington, to get a better agreement with Mexico regarding a joint campaign against the Apaches.
There was a brief period of quiet, except for hard work that kept Jimmie, as well as others, on the move. The final break came about the middle of October.
Jimmie saw the heliostat flashes which spread the news. He was riding back to Bowie from a long trip down to a supply camp at the border. Chancing to turn his head, when only a little way out from the camp, he caught the flash of a message from a station in the south.
The regulation Morse dots and dashes (long and short flashes) were used by the stations. Now he paused, to read. The station was at least ten miles distant. The air was very clear, and his eyes were good eyes.
What was that? No practice message, this, or ordinary routine. The first word—even the first three letters—stiffened him intent.
“H-o-s-t-i-l-e b-a-n-d h-e-a-d-g (heading) n-o-r-t-h f-o-r D-r-a-g-o-o-n c-o-u-n-t-r-y. Q-u-i-c-k.” Signed.
Hah! “Wake up, Chiquito! Gwan with you!” The message read like business, and stirring business. Evidently the Chiricahuas were getting bold. But it did not seem possible that with all these troops, and the railroad, and the telegraph, and the helio stations, and the armed and watchful settlers, a raid could amount to much.
The helio stations were twenty or twenty-five miles apart. A message had been sent from Nacori, in the mountains of northern Mexico, two hundred miles to Fort Bowie, in an hour. But so fast moved this band of raiders, and so cleverly they chose their trail, that by the time Jimmie arrived at Bowie they not only had crossed the line but had disappeared somewhere in Arizona!
Already the troops were in motion, trying to close in and head the raiders off. It was reported that there were eleven warriors. They were not even sighted again, until, suddenly, they struck the White Mountain reservation itself—surprised a camp of the White Mountains, killed twelve and carried away six women and children.
That, then, had been the object of the raid: to take revenge upon the reservation Apaches for sending scouts against the Chiricahuas!
The White Mountains succeeded in killing one raider, during the fight. He was Hal-zay, Nah-che’s half-brother. They cut off his head, for a trophy. But the ten others completed their bold circuit, and in spite of soldiers, settlers, telegraph, heliostat and railroad escaped back into Mexico.
“I never would have believed it!” declared Chief Packer Tom Moore, to Jimmie at Bowie. “It beats the Dutch! The general’s got every waterhole covered, and every pass watched. Anyhow, now there’s a fresh trail, for back-tracking on, where they came up by the shortest way. Crawford and Cap’n Davis are going right down after the bacon, to stay till they get Geronimo or his scalp. I’ve picked you for assistant chief packer with one of ’em. Which do you say? Chances are even. You’re the boss.”
“Guess I’ll throw in with Crawford, Tom, if you put it up to me,” promptly said Jimmie. Assistant chief packer! Wow!
Captain Crawford and Captain Wirt Davis were both good men, but as Tom Horn, acting chief of scouts, had remarked: “Crawford’s my style of fighter: the go-get-’em kind with a wolf jaw!”
“You’d better be makin’ up your best trains, then,” counseled Tom, to Jimmie. “Three, I reckon. Crawford won’t wait on sore backs or sore feet; and he’d rather bust every man and every mule and go on by himself, than let Davis outdo him.”
When Captain Crawford arrived with his column at Bowie, from Fort Apache, on November 15, Jimmie the assistant chief packer was ready for him. The Captain Wirt Davis column was to be composed of cavalry and scouts both; but Captain Crawford was taking only scouts.
These were one hundred Chiricahuas, White Mountains and Warm Springs, from the Fort Apache reservation; but mainly Chiricahuas, with Chato as their chief, and Ka-e-ten-na the traveler included. Micky Free was going with the San Carlos scouts and Captain Davis. Captain Crawford had selected so many Chiricahuas because his goal was the Sierra Madre Range again, and the Chiricahuas knew all that country well.
The scouts formed two companies, under command of First Lieutenant Marion P. Maus, of the First Infantry, and a gallant young “shave tail,” Second Lieutenant William Ewen Shipp, of the Tenth Cavalry, only two years out of West Point.
Another “shave tail,” Second Lieutenant Sam Faison, of the First Infantry, who had graduated in the same class with Lieutenant Shipp, was the adjutant, quarter-master and commissary, all three. Dr. T. B. Davis was the surgeon, Concepcion was the interpreter. Al Sieber, the old war-horse, was retained to look after the reservations, but Tom Horn was to be chief of scouts and had proved first-class.
Altogether, it was an honor to be in pack service with such an expedition, especially as Captain Crawford had volunteered for the Sierra Madre trip because it was the more dangerous of the two.
Lieutenant-General Phil Sheridan, commander of the United States Army, had come out to Bowie from Washington, to see the columns off. He and General Crook inspected the whole outfit, in a parade at the fort.
“Well,” reported Chief of Scouts Horn, after a conference in General Crook’s quarters, “this is the idea: The general says we’re to go down into Mexico and stay six months, if necessary, and when we strike a trail we’re to follow it as long as it shows a single moccasin track or pony track. Savvy? When we’ve killed all the bucks who don’t surrender, and corralled all the women and children, we can come up home with our batch. Then he’ll tell ’em what’ll happen next.”
The march veered west through the Dragoon Mountains, in the hope of striking the up trail and following it down. But heavy rains had washed out the signs, so the course was continued straight south, for the Sierra Madre country again. The Chiricahuas were bound to be there, if at any place.
Throughout the month of December the pack-train job was the same tough job as that when General Crook led on, in 1883: up hill, down hill, sliding, scrambling, falling, barking shins and bruising hoofs and feet, amidst terrific canyons, thorny brush, sharp rocks, towering cliffs, sun and rain, heat and cold. Tom Horn scouted far ahead with a few picked scouts; the captain and his lieutenants and the plucky doctor, and old Concepcion, rode keenly with the eager main body; and Jimmie, assistant chief packer in place of Tom Moore, hustled his toiling pack-trains of fifty mules each, so as to bring them into camp on time every evening.
Now it was the first week in January. There was only one pack-train. Captain Crawford had ordered that the two others be sent back to the border, two hundred miles, with Lieutenant Faison, the commissary and quarter-master, for supplies. So Jimmie had detached the trains of “Chileno John” and Sam Wisser. He had stayed.
Chief Scout Horn had been gone two weeks; but he kept runners out with news from him. He had discovered fresh sign: Indian and cattle trails; cattle carcasses; and a recent camp. Ka-e-ten-na and Chato had just come in. They brought word for Captain Crawford to push on, and join the advance. Tom would be waiting—he knew that the Chiricahuas were yonder before him.
The captain sent for Jimmie.
“We must reduce our packs again,” he said, “for a forced march. You will pack four of your strongest mules with twelve days’ rations for eighty men. The personal outfit will be cut down to one blanket for each man. Take the shoes off the mules, to avoid noise. The rest of the outfit will be left here, under guard of those men who are unable to travel. Which of your packers have you in mind, to go on?”
“Jimmie Dunn, captain,” smiled Jimmie.
“It’s afoot, you know—and probably night marches. Will your leg stand it?”
“Will we strike the hostiles, captain?”
“Sure.”
“That’s all my leg needs, to lengthen it out, then,” laughed Jimmie.
He felt that he was as fit as Captain Crawford. The captain looked badly. So did the doctor; and old Concepcion the interpreter was about done.
The scouts seemed unusually solemn, as if the report by Chato and Ka-e-ten-na had much impressed them. They proceeded to make medicine. In the light of a small fire old No-wa-ze-ta the medicine man unrolled the strip of sacred buckskin that he carried; one by one the scouts kneeled before him; he mumbled over them and held the sacred buckskin to their lips. After that they held a council.
“Some of the soldiers chiefs at Bowie say maybe your Chiricahua will not fight,” said Jimmie, sitting beside Chato, in a blanket, and watching. “They say maybe you will pretend to fight, but all the time you will be sending word to Geronimo to keep away.”
“That is not true,” declared Chato. “We will fight. We are ready.”
About midnight camp was broken. Through the cold and the darkness Chato and Ka-e-ten-na guided. Each officer and man was in moccasins and packed his own blanket. Jimmie drove the four mules.
About noon the signs mentioned by Tom Horn were found: a trail, and the bodies of butchered cattle. That evening Ka-e-ten-na pointed ahead.
“Espinosa del Diablo,” he said. “Maybe we cross. Very bad country.”
Espinosa del Diablo was Spanish for Devil’s Backbone—a high mass of jagged ridges.
Early in the morning two more of Tom Horn’s scouts came in. The light of Indian camp-fires had been sighted, reflected in the sky, and Chief Scout Horn urged the captain to hurry.
The command made a short march, rested until late afternoon, and started on again, to march by night. The country steadily grew worse, with deep, dark canyons, steep rocky hills, heavy brush, and a river which was constantly being forded. Moccasins were soaked and soon cut to bits.
From now on, the camps were not ordered until midnight. Only small fires of dry wood were permitted; and under one thin blanket apiece nobody was able to sleep, before the sun rose. In fact, it was as miserable a time as Jimmie ever had experienced.
More messages arrived from Tom Horn. He had located the Chiricahuas—had smelled the mescal steam, had seen the fires. “Hurry!” he bade. He had only two scouts with him.
Captain Crawford lengthened the marches, to all night and half-day stretches. Some of the Apache scouts, tough as they were, began to straggle and limp. Doctor Davis and old Concepcion could barely hobble.
At sunset of January 9, “Dutchy,” another of the Horn scouts, appeared. Dutchy said that the Chiricahua camp was but twelve miles away. He and Tom and the other scout had reconnoitered it—had witnessed the Chiricahuas moving about, herding their horses. They did not suspect that any enemies were near.
Tom and the other scout had no blankets, and nothing to eat but a little meat—the three of them had had nothing else for ten days; now he, Dutchy, was to bring the captain on at once, while the two watched the Chiricahua camp.
Hurrah! The news put vim into the command. The end of the marches was at hand. Evidently Geronimo had no idea he could be found away in here.
Captain Crawford issued rapid orders.
“Twenty minutes’ halt. No fires. Let the men eat bread and raw bacon. Examine arms carefully. Pack-mules to remain here, with the packer, Doctor Davis and the interpreter. All available men to be ready for a night march, and attack at daylight.”
That was hard luck for Jimmie—but Doctor Davis and Concepcion were completely exhausted, and somebody had to stay with the mules, to move them on in a jiffy when sent for.
In precisely twenty minutes the command set out, guided by Dutchy. It had been the first halt in six hours! As in the twilight they clambered up a rocky, narrow trail, Jimmie saw that Lieutenant Maus was helping Captain Crawford. Even at that, the captain was obliged to pause, once or twice, and lean upon his carbine. He used his carbine as a staff.
“His indomitable will is all that keeps the captain going,” remarked Doctor Davis.
“Muy hombre (Much man),” groaned old Concepcion.
The darkness closed in quickly. It was a bitter cold night. Concepcion and the mules moaned, the doctor’s teeth chattered, and wrapped in his single blanket Jimmie shivered. The brush stirred with the stealthy tread of prowling animals, a leopard shrieked, at intervals, and the still air stung.
With the first grayness Jimmie was up, to unlimber, and listen. The attack upon the Chiricahua camp was due. The moments dragged. The doctor and Concepcion seemed to have dropped asleep at last, but they, also, shivered in their uneasy slumber. This was the coldest period of the night—just at dawn.