Harper's Round Table, November 10, 1896

RECAPTURED.

A STORY OF THE APACHE DAYS IN ARIZONA.

BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.

There was a boy at old Camp Sandy once upon a time when white men were scarce in Arizona, and from the day he was ten years old this boy's consuming desire was to help "clean out," as he heard the soldiers express it, a certain band of mountain Apaches that had surprised and slaughtered a small party of people in whose welfare he felt especial interest, for the reason that there was with them a little fellow of his own age. They had sojourned at Sandy only three days, and then, deaf to remonstrance, had gone on their way up into the mountains "prospecting"; but during those three days the two youngsters had been inseparable. "Sherry" Bates, the sergeant's son, had done the honors of the post for Jimmy Lane, the miner's boy; had proudly exhibited the troop quarters, stables, and corrals; had taken him across the stream to the old ruins up the opposite heights, and told him prodigious stories of the odd people that used to dwell there; had introduced him personally to all the hounds, big and little, and had come to grief in professing to be on intimate terms with a young but lively black bear cub at the sutler's store, and was rescued from serious damage from bruin's claws and clasping arms only by the prompt dash of by-standers. It took some of Sherry's conceit out of him, but not all, and the troopers had lots of fun, later on, at the corral, when he essayed to show Master Jim how well he could ride bare-back, and mounted for the purpose one of Mexican Pete's little "burros" by way of illustration. All the same, they were days of thrilling interest, and Sherry wept sorely when, a week later, a friendly Indian came in and made known to the officers, mainly by signs, that the party had been killed to a man, that their mutilated bodies were lying festering in the sun about the ruins of their wagon up near Stoneman's Lake in the pine country of the Mogollon.[1] The Major commanding sent out a scouting party to investigate, and the report proved only too true. The bodies could no longer be identified; but one thing was certain: there were the remains of four men, hacked and burned beyond recognition, but not a trace of little Jim.

[1] Pronounced Mogol_yone_.

"It was Coyote's band beyond doubt," said the Lieutenant who went in command, and for Coyote's band the troopers at Sandy "had it in," as their soldier slang expressed it, for long, long months--for over a year, in fact--before they ever got word or trace of them. They seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. Meantime there had been chase after chase, scout after scout. General Crook had been transferred long since to an Eastern field, and was busy with the Sioux and Cheyennes. Another commander, one who lacked Crook's knowledge of Indian tricks and character, had taken charge in Arizona, and the Apaches had quickly found it out. They made it lively for small parties, and easily kept out of the path of big ones. And this was the way things were going when, one autumn night, signal fires were discovered ablaze away up in the Red Rock country, and Major Wheeler sent a troop post-haste to see what it meant; and with this troop went Sergeant Bates, and on its trail, an hour later, unbeknown to almost everybody, went Sherry.

Indians rarely ventured into the deep valley of the Sandy. The boy had hunted jack-rabbits and shot California quail and fished for "shiners" and other inconspicuous members of the finny tribe along its banks, and he knew the neighborhood north, south, and west for miles. Eastward, out of sight of the flag-staff he had never ventured. That was towards the land of the Apache, and thither his father had told him no one was safe to go. An only son was Sherry, and a pretty good boy, as boys go, especially when it is considered that he had been motherless for several years. The old sergeant, his father, watched him carefully, taught him painstakingly, and was very grateful when any of the officers or their wives would help with the lessons of the little man. He had had a pony to ride, but that pony was old when his father bought him from an officer who was ordered to the East, and Sherry soon declared him too old and stiff for his use. What he craved was a horse, and occasionally the men let him mount some of their chargers when the troop went down to water at the river, and that was Sherry's glory; and on this particular October night he had stolen from his little bed and made his way to the corral, and had got Jimmy Lanigan, the saddler sergeant's son, now a trumpeter in "F" Troop, to saddle for him a horse usually ridden by Private McPhee, now sick in hospital of mountain fever. As Mac couldn't go, his horse would not be needed, and Sherry determined to ride in his place.

But some one gave old Bates the "tip," and he caught the little fellow by the ear and led him home just before the troop started, and bade him stay there; and Sherry feigned to be penitent and obedient, but hugged his father hard, and so they parted.

But boys who own dogs know the old dog's trick. Sometimes when starting for a day's pleasuring where Rover would be very much in the way, the master has sternly ordered him home when, with confident joy, the usually welcome pet and companion came bounding and barking after. You have all seen how sad and crestfallen he looked, how dumbly he begged, how reluctantly he skulked homeward when at last he had to go or be pelted with stones; and then, time and again, he finally turned and followed, a long distance behind, never venturing to draw near, until, so very far from home that he knew he couldn't be sent back, he would reappear, tail on high and eyes beaming forgiveness and assurance, and the battle was won.

And Sherry had learned Rover's little game, and he lay patiently in wait until he knew the troop was gone, then over to the corral he stole, easily coaxed the stable sentry into giving him a lift, and in half an hour he was loping northward along the winding Sandy under the starry skies, sure of overtaking the command before the dawn if need be, yet craftily keeping well behind the hindermost, so that his stern old father could not send him back when at last his presence was discovered.

For, long before daybreak, the soldiers were trailing in single file, afoot and leading their horses up the steep, rocky sides of the Mogollon, taking a short-cut across the range instead of following the long, circuitous route to Stoneman's Lake, and only a hundred feet or so behind the rear-most of the pack-train followed keen-eyed, quick-eared little Sherry, still clinging to his saddle, for his light weight made little difference to such a stocky horse as McPhee's Patsy, and trusting mainly to Patsy's power as a trailer to carry him unerringly in the hoof-prints of the troop.

When at last the sun came peering over the pine crests to the east, the little command was deep down in a rocky cañon, and here the Captain ordered halt, lead into line, and unsaddle. The horses and the pack-mules were quickly relieved of their loads, and the men were gathering dry fagots for little cook-fires--fires that must make no smoke at all, even down in that rocky defile, for Indian eyes are sharp as a microscope; but before marching on again men and horses both had to have their bite and the men their tin mug of soldier coffee, and here it was that some one suddenly exclaimed,

"Well, I'm blessed if here ain't Sherry!"

It was useless for the old sergeant to scold now. The officers promptly and laughingly took the boy's part and declared him "a chip of the old block," and bade the sergeant bring the boy along. It was safer, at all events, than sending him back.

And so, secretly proud of him, though openly declaring he would larrup him well the moment they got back to the post, Sergeant Bates obeyed his Captain, and thus it happened that Master Sherry was with "F" Troop the chill October morning, just at dawn, when they found out, entirely to their satisfaction, just what those signal-fires meant.

They were not visible from Camp Sandy, you must understand. Indians are too sharp for that. They were started in certain deep clefts in the Red Rocks which permitted their glare to be seen only from the southeast or the east, the direction from which the roving bands approached when seeking to steal their way back to the old reservation after some bloody foray, sure of food and welcome at the lodges of their friends and fellow-savages, provided they came not empty-handed. Coyote's band had not been near the reservation since their exploit of the year before. A price was on the leader's head, but scouting parties away down to the southeast in the Chiricahua country had learned that recently Coyote with some forty followers had crossed to the north of the Gila, and seemed to be making his way back to his old haunts in the Mogollon. All this was wired to Major Wheeler, and Wheeler sent some trustworthy Apache-Mohave scouts out towards the head-waters of Chevelon's Fork to the east, with orders to watch for the coming of Coyote. It was one of these runners who brought in the tidings that the signal-fires were burning, and that meant, "Come on, Coyote; the coast is clear."

And Apache confederates, watching from the reservation, twenty miles up-stream, would have said the coast was still clear, for the road to Stoneman's Lake was untrodden. A day later, to be sure, they got word that a whole troop of horse had gone by night up into the mountains, but it was then too late to undo what they had done--lured Coyote many a mile towards his enemies. They sent up "smokes" in the afternoon to warn him, but by that time Coyote's people, what was left of them, knew more than did their friends at the reservation.

For, early that morning, just at dawn, while some of them were sound asleep in their brush shelters, or "wicky-ups," away on top of a rocky pinnacle that overlooked the country for miles, this is what happened:

Following the lead of three or four swart, black-haired, beady-eyed Apache scouts, the soldiers came stealthily climbing the steep. Away down in a rocky cañon they had left the horses and pack-mules, their blankets and, many of them, their boots, and in moccasins, or even stocking feet in a few cases, they noiselessly made their way. Officers and all carried the death-dealing little brown cavalry carbine, and thimble belts of copper cartridges were buckled about their waists. "Find um top," the leader of the little squad of scouts muttered to the Captain, as he pointed the evening before to this distant peak, and well he knew their ways, for only three years before he himself had been a "hostile," and was tamed into subjection by General Crook. And so it proved. Relying on the far-away night fires, Coyote and his weary band had made their brush shelters on the old Picacho. The few squaws with them had filled their water-jars at the cañon. Two trusty runners had gone on westward to the reservation, and the rest to sleep. Coyote thought the white soldiers "too heap fool" to think of making a night march through the mountains instead of coming away around by the old road. With the troop-horses was left a small guard, and with the guard a little boy--Master Sherry Bates--fretting and fuming not a little as he lay there among the rocks, wrapped in his father's blanket, and listening with eagerness unspeakable for the crash of musketry away up on that dimly outlined peak that should tell that his father and the boys had found their foemen and the fight was on. Presently, as the eastern sky began to change from crimson to gold, the lofty summit seemed slowly to blaze with glistening fire. The light, still dim and feeble in the jagged ravine, grew sharp and clear along the range, and one of the guard, peering through the Captain's binocular, swore he could "see some of the fellers climbing close to the top"; and Sherry, though shivering with cold and excitement, rolled out of his blanket and scrambled to his feet. An instant more and, floating on the mountain breeze, there came the sudden crash and splutter of distant musketry, and Sherry could control himself no longer. Mad with excitement, he began dancing about the bivouac. The men were all listening and gazing. The horses were snorting and pawing. There was no one to hinder the little fellow now. Half shrouded by the lingering darkness in the gorge, he stole away among the stunted pines and went speeding as though for dear life up the cañon.