To complicate matters further, the Chiricahuas, and all the other Apaches as well, were filled with the notion that the Mexicans were a horde of cowards and treacherous liars, afraid to meet them in war but valiant enough to destroy their women and children, for whose blood, by the savage’s law of retaliation, blood must in turn be shed. Affairs went on in this unsatisfactory course from October, 1882, until March, 1883, everybody in Arizona expecting a return of the dreaded Chiricahuas, but no one knowing where the first attack should be made. The meagre military force allotted to the department was distributed so as to cover as many exposed points as possible, one body of 150 Apache scouts, under Captain Emmet Crawford, Third Cavalry, being assigned to the arduous duty of patrolling the Mexican boundary for a distance of two hundred miles, through a rugged country pierced with ravines and cañons. No one was surprised to learn that toward the end of March this skeleton line had been stealthily penetrated by a bold band of twenty-six Chiricahuas, under a very crafty and daring young chief named _Chato_ (Spanish for Flat Nose). By stealing fresh horses from every ranch they were successful in traversing from seventy-five to one hundred miles a day, killing and destroying all in their path, the culminating point in their bloody career being the butchery of Judge McComas and wife, prominent and refined people of Silver City, N. M., and the abduction of their bright boy, Charlie, whom the Indians carried back with them on their retreat through New Mexico and Chihuahua. It may serve to give some idea of the courage, boldness, and subtlety of these raiders to state that in their dash through Sonora, Arizona, New Mexico, and Chihuahua, a distance of not less than eight hundred miles, they passed at times through localities fairly well settled and close to an aggregate of at least 5,000 troops--4,500 Mexican and 500 American. They killed twenty-five persons, Mexican and American, and lost but two--one killed near the Total Wreck mine, Arizona, and one who fell into the hands of the American troops, of which last much has to be narrated. To attempt to catch such a band of Apaches by _direct_ pursuit would be about as hopeless a piece of business as that of catching so many fleas. All that could be done was done; the country was alarmed by telegraph; people at exposed points put upon their guard, while detachments of troops scoured in every direction, hoping, by good luck, to intercept, retard, mayhap destroy, the daring marauders. The trail they had made coming up from Mexico could, however, be followed, _back_ to the stronghold; and this, in a military sense, would be the most _direct_, as it would be the most practical pursuit.