This reply disconcerted “Hieronymo;” he waited for an hour, to resume the conversation, but received no encouragement. He and his warriors were certainly as fine-looking a lot of pirates as ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship; not one among them who was not able to travel forty to fifty miles a day over these gloomy precipices and along these gloomy cañons. In muscular development, lung and heart power, they were, without exception, the finest body of human beings I had ever looked upon. Each was armed with a breech-loading Winchester; most had nickel-plated revolvers of the latest pattern, and a few had also bows and lances. They soon began to talk with the Apache scouts, who improved the occasion to inform them that not only had they come down with General Crook, but that from both Sonora and Chihuahua Mexican soldiers might be looked for in swarms. “Hieronymo” was much humbled by this, and went a second time to General Crook to have a talk. He assured him that he had always wanted to be at peace, but that he had been as much sinned against as sinning; that he had been ill-treated at the San Carlos and driven away; that the Mexicans had been most treacherous in their dealings with his people, and that he couldn’t believe a word they said. They had made war upon his women and children, but had run like coyotes from his soldiers. He had been trying to open communications with the Mexican generals in Chihuahua to arrange for an exchange of prisoners. If General Crook would let him go back to San Carlos, and guarantee him just treatment, he would gladly work for his own living, and follow the path of peace. He simply asked for a trial; if he could not make peace, he and his men would die in these mountains, fighting to the last. He was not a bit afraid of Mexicans alone; but he could not hope to prolong a contest with Mexicans and Americans united, in these ranges, and with so many Apache allies assisting them. General Crook said but little; it amounted to this: that “Hieronymo” could make up his mind as to what he wanted, peace or war.