LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

      THE RETURN TO CAMP GRANT—LANCED TO DEATH BY APACHES—THE KILLING OF MILLER AND TAPPAN—COMPANY QUARTERS—APACHE CAPTIVES—THE CLOUD-BURST—APACHE CORN-FIELDS—MEETING COLONEL SANFORD—ENTRAPPED IN AN APACHE AMBUSCADE—AN OLD-TIMER’S REMINISCENCES OF TUCSON—FUNERAL CROSSES ON THE ROADSIDE—PADRE EUSEBIO KINO—FIRST VIEW OF TUCSON—THE “SHOO FLY” RESTAURANT.

      OF the return march very little need be said. The story would become too long, and there would be needless repetition if an attempt were to be made to describe each scout in detail. There are others to come of much more importance, and covering the same region, so that the reader will lose nothing by the omission.

      There was the usual amount of rough mountain climbing, wearing out shoes and patience and nerve strength all at one and the same time; there was the usual deprivation of water to be expected in the arid wastes of southern Arizona, where springs are few and far between; there were the usual tricks for getting along without much to drink, such as putting a pebble or twig in the mouth to induce a more copious flow of saliva; and when camp was made and the water was found to be not all that it might be, there were other tricks for cleaning it, or, at least, causing a deposition of the earthy matter held in suspension, by cutting up a few plates of the nopal and letting them remain in the kettle for a short time, until their mucilaginous juice had precipitated everything. But a still better plan was to improve the good springs, which was a labor of love with officers and men, and many a fine water hole in Arizona has been the scene of much hard work in digging out, building up with cracker boxes or something to hold the water and keep it from soaking into the earth.

      Camp Grant was reached at last, and the prisoners turned over to the care of the guard, and Lieutenant Cushing, his first duty in the Territory accomplished with so much credit to himself and his men, made ready to start out on another and a longer trip just as soon as the signal should be given by the post commander.

      Our troop was peculiarly situated. It had a second mount of ponies, captured from the Apaches against whom Cushing had done such good service in southwestern Texas. Orders came down in due time from San Francisco to turn them in and have them sold by the quartermaster; but until these orders came—and owing to the slowness of mail communications in those days, they did not come for several months—we had the advantage of being able to do nearly twice as much work as troops less fortunately placed.

      The humdrum life of any post in Arizona in those days was enough to drive one crazy. The heat in most of them became simply unendurable, although here the great dryness of the atmosphere proved a benefit. Had the air been humid, very few of our garrison would now be alive to tell of temperatures of one hundred and twenty and over, and of days during the whole twenty-four hours of which the thermometer did not register below the one hundred notch.

      There was a story current that the heat had one time become so excessive that two thermometers had to be strapped together to let the mercury have room to climb. That was before my arrival, and is something for which I do not care to vouch. I give the story as it was given to me by my friend, Jack Long, of whom I am soon to speak.

      In every description of Arizona that I have ever seen, and I claim to be familiar with most if not all that has appeared in print, there occurs the story of the soldier who came back to Fort Yuma after his blankets, finding the next world too cold to suit him. I make reference to the story because many worthy people would find it hard to believe that a man had been in Arizona who did not tell this story in his first chapter, but it has grown to be such a mouldy military chestnut that I may be pardoned for omitting it.

      There were all kinds of methods of killing the hours. One that interested everybody for a while was the battles which we stirred up between the nests of red and black ants, which could be found in plenty and of great size close to the post. I have seen the nests in question three or four feet high, and not less than six feet long, crowded with industrious population. The way to start the battle was to make a hole in each nest and insert cans which had lately been emptied of peaches or other sweets.

      These would soon fill with the battalions of the two colors, and could then be poured into a basin, where the combat à outrance never failed to begin at once. The red ants were much the braver, and one of that color would tackle two, and even three, of the black. If the rumpus lasted for any length of time, queens would appear, as if to superintend what was going on. At least, that was our impression when we saw the large-bodied, yellow-plush insects sallying from the depths of the nests.

      We had not been back in the post a week before we had something to talk about. A Mexican who was doing some work for the Government came up to confer with the commanding officer as to details. He left the adjutant’s office before mid-day, and had not gone one thousand yards—less, indeed, than rifle-shot—from the door, when an Apache, lurking in ambush behind a clump of palmilla, pierced him through and through with a lance, and left him dead, weltering in his own blood. To attempt pursuit was worse than useless, and all we could do was to bury the victim.

      It was this peculiarity of the Apaches that made them such a terror to all who came in contact with them, and had compelled the King of Spain to maintain a force of four thousand dragoons to keep in check a tribe of naked savages, who scorned to wear any protection against the bullets of the Castilians, who would not fight when pursued, but scattered like their own crested mountain quail, and then hovered on the flanks of the whites, and were far more formidable when dispersed than when they were moving in compact bodies. This was simply the best military policy for the Apaches to adopt—wear out the enemy by vexatious tactics, and by having the pursuit degenerate into a will-o’-th’-wisp chase. The Apaches could find food on every hillside, and the water-holes, springs, and flowing streams far up in the mountains were perfectly well known to them.

      The Caucasian troops, of whatever nationality, would wander about, half-crazed with thirst, and maddened by the heat of the day or chilled by the cold winds of night in the mountains, and unable to tell which plants were of value as food and which were not.

      The Apache was in no sense a coward. He knew his business, and played his cards to suit himself. He never lost a shot, and never lost a warrior in a fight where a brisk run across the nearest ridge would save his life and exhaust the heavily clad soldier who endeavored to catch him. Apaches in groups of two and three, and even individual Apaches, were wont to steal in close to the military posts and ranchos, and hide behind some sheltering rock, or upon the summit of some conveniently situated hill, and there remain for days, scanning the movements

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