General Crook and the Fighting Apaches: Treating Also of the Part Borne by Jimmie Dunn in the days, 1871-1886, When With Soldiers and Pack-trains and Indian Scouts, but Employing the Stronger Weapons of Kindness, Firmness and Honesty, the Gray Fox Worked Hard to the End That the White Men and the Red Men in the Southwest as in the Northwest Might Better Understand One AnotherSabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
General
General Crook and the Fighting Apaches: Treating Also of the Part Borne by Jimmie Dunn in the days, 1871-1886, When With Soldiers and Pack-trains and Indian Scouts, but Employing the Stronger Weapons of Kindness, Firmness and Honesty, the Gray Fox Worked Hard to the End That the White Men and the Red Men in the Southwest as in the Northwest Might Better Understand One Another
“There are soldiers marching this way,” he reported, breathless, and
big with his news. “They struck us when we were eating, in the medicine
springs valley near the Sierra Bonita. We were bringing meat up from
Mexico, but we left it. We have seen signal fires telling us of other
soldiers. Geronimo says to go at once to the next place-we-know-of.”
Instantly the camp was all confusion. The old men shouted, the women
ran around screeching and gathering their household things, children
scampered and screamed, dogs yelped. The frameworks of the huts were
set afire, and leaving in the smoke the Chiricahuas hustled out for
other quarters.
They made a queer procession. The old men stoutly hobbled by aid of
long staffs or “walking-sticks”; the women were laden with huge bundles
slung to their backs by means of straps about their foreheads, and with
babies tucked into their shawls or bound in wicker cradles; ponies
had been packed with baskets; the smaller children rode atop, but the
strong boys and girls walked. Jimmie and the boys of his age were not
obliged to carry anything.
Through canyon and across valley, into brush and timber, up slope
and down, they toiled, led by old Cha-dah, who was the camp tatah
or chief. Every so often the tatah and the other old men in advance
halted, and stuck their staffs into the ground, and waited. Here
everybody rested, for a brief space. By this system many miles were
covered before camp was established, at evening, and all might eat and
sleep.
Jimmie, lying wrapped in a piece of blanket near Nah-che, under a
pine tree, was awakened in the night by a hand firmly pressed upon
his forehead. The pressure warned him not to stir, so he only stared
up――and in the star-lighted dimness he saw the one bright eye of
Red-head beaming down from close above him.
Red-head was squatting, waiting. Now he removed his hand slowly, and
beckoned with his finger, and silently backed away.
This was enough for Jimmie. What Red-head was doing here, on a sudden,
after a long absence, he did not delay to reason out, but began
cautiously to slip from his blanketing.
First he drew away, crouched; then on hands and knees; then, stooping,
and carefully setting foot before foot, testing the ground lest a twig
snap. From tree to tree he stole, until he was beyond the camp――and on
a sudden, again, Red-head arose right in front of him.
That was good! Now he followed behind the Red-head’s soundless course,
swiftly, straight away, until Red-head stopped.
“Do you want to escape?” asked Red-head. He carried a bow and quiver,
and wore only a cloth about his middle, and moccasins.
“Yes.”
“If you’ll travel fast, I’ll take you,” said Red-head. “Soldiers are
coming. If we don’t find them you can go to Chief Pedro of the White
Mountains. The Chiricahua never visit there, because of the fort.”
“Bueno (Good),” approved Jimmie.
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