When he returned to the post he acted much satisfied. He arranged to have a regular reservation set off, and said that an agent and teacher would be appointed, by the Society of Friends. Soon he left, with his escort, to continue his tour. While nobody might doubt that Mr. Colyer was a very good and honest man, nobody put much faith in his methods. After having fought and raided all summer, many of the wild Apaches would be only too willing to be fed and protected upon the reservations, all winter. Now the Indians of Arizona seemed to be provided for――except that Commissioner Colyer had not been able to find any Chiricahuas. He had sent word to them, but they had hidden from him. And when in western New Mexico he had stopped at the Cañada Alamosa, or Cottonwood Canyon, where Chief Victorio’s friendly Mimbres and Warm Spring Apaches were living, the most of them had run from his soldier escort. They liked their Cottonwood Canyon, and feared that they were to be removed. VII JIMMIE TAKES A LESSON “Micky Free!” Jimmie almost shouted it, he was so astonished. He was again at the post, on an errand for Joe Felmer, after Commissioner Colyer had been gone about a week; and who should come trotting across the hot gravelly parade ground but Micky Free himself, in single file with two strange Indians! Micky’s one quick eye sighted Jimmie, standing agape, and he fell out of line and pattered over, grinning. “How do you do, Boy-who-sleeps?” he said, in Apache. “How do you do, Red-head?” answered Jimmie. “I am glad to see you.” Micky wore a loose, whitish cotton shirt with its tails outside ragged cotton trousers, and on his feet Apache moccasins. A white cloth band was around his red head, his one blue eye beamed alertly, and his freckled face was streaked with perspiration and dust. All that he carried was an Apache fiddle made from a bent rib of a yucca, strung with deer sinews. The two Indians with him were stripped to breech-clout aprons, and moccasins, and red flannel head-bands; one of them had rawhide shield and long lance, the other, bow and quiver. They had continued on and now had been stopped before the adjutant’s office by the orderly. “Let us sit down and talk, Cheemie,” laughed Micky. So he and Jimmie squatted. “What are you doing, Micky?” “I have come over from Camp Apache with two White Mountain runners. They bring messages from that fort to this one. We came through in one day and two nights. It is more than one hundred miles. Have you heard the news, Cheemie?” “What news, Micky?” “Cochise says he wants peace. He has gone on the Ojo Caliente (Warm Spring) place, in the Cañada Alamosa, where Chief Victorio is.” “How do you know?” exclaimed Jimmie. This was great news.