The Chiricahuas were reserved, but good-humored. Several of them spoke Spanish fluently. Rations were issued in small quantity, ponies being killed for meat. Two or three of the Indians bore fresh bullet-wounds from the late fight. On the succeeding evening, May 20, 1883, the Chiricahuas were again numbered at breakfast. They had increased to 121--sixty being women and girls, the remainder, old men, young men, and boys. All said that “Chihuahua” and his comrades were hard at work gathering the tribe together and sending them in. Toward eight o’clock a fearful hubbub was heard in the tall cliffs overlooking camp; Indians fully armed could be descried running about from crag to crag, evidently much perplexed and uncertain what to do. They began to interchange cries with those in our midst, and, after a brief interval, a couple of old squaws ventured down the face of the precipice, followed at irregular distances by warriors, who hid themselves in the rocks half-way down. They asked whether they were to be hurt if they came in. One of the scouts and one of the Chiricahuas went out to them to say that it made no difference whether they came in or not; that “Chihuahua” and all his people had surrendered, and that if these new arrivals came in during the day they should not be harmed; that until “Chihuahua” and the last of his band had had a chance to come in and bring Charlie McComas hostilities should be suspended. The Chiricahuas were still fearful of treachery and hung like hawks or vultures to the protecting shadows of inaccessible pinnacles one thousand feet above our position. Gradually their fears wore off, and in parties of two and three, by various trails, they made their way to General Crook’s fire. They were a band of thirty-six warriors, led by “Hieronymo,” who had just returned from a bloody foray in Chihuahua. “Hieronymo” expressed a desire to have a talk; but General Crook declined to have anything to do with him or his party beyond saying that they had now an opportunity to see for themselves that their own people were against them; that we had penetrated to places vaunted as impregnable; that the Mexicans were coming in from all sides; and that “Hieronymo” could make up his mind for peace or war just as he chose.