In 1883 two Eastern boys went into Arizona to prospect. Their real outing began at Willow Springs, where they had stayed two days with the cowboys. These cowboys had warned them against the Apaches, but the young men seemed entirely fearless, and pushed on into the mountains. On the second morning after they left the settlement, one of the boys was getting breakfast while the other went to bring in the pack horses that had been hobbled and turned loose the night before to graze. Just about the time he found his horses, two Apache warriors rode out from cover toward him and he made a hasty retreat to camp, jumping off of a bluff and in so doing breaking his leg.
A consultation was then held between the two Easterners and it was decided that perhaps all the stories they had been told of the Apache raids were true, and that it was advisable to surrender. Accordingly a white handkerchief was tied to the end of a pole and raised cautiously above the top of the bluff. In about ten minutes the two Indians—one a very old warrior and the other a mere boy, evidently his son—rode into camp and dismounted. The old warrior examined the broken limb, then without a word proceeded to take off the shirt of the uninjured youth, with strips of which he carefully bound up the broken leg. After this the two Indians ate the prepared breakfast and remounted their ponies. Then the old warrior, indicating the direction with his thumb, said “Doctor—Lordsburg—three days,” and silently rode away. The young men rode twenty-five miles to Sansimone, where the cowboys fitted them out with a wagon to continue their journey to Lordsburg, seventy-five miles further, where a physician’s services could be secured.
In 1883 two prospectors, Alberts and Reese by name, were driving a team, consisting of a horse and a mule, through Turkey Creek bottoms, when they were shot by the Indians. The wagon and harness were left in the road, and the mule was found dead in the road two hundred yards from that place. Evidently the Indians had not much use for him. The guns of the prospectors were found later, but the horse they drove was not recovered.
In none of the above-named instances were the bodies of the victims mutilated. However, there are many recorded instances in which the Apache Indians did mutilate the bodies of their victims, but it is claimed by Geronimo that these were outlawed Indians, as his regular warriors were instructed to scalp none except those killed in battle, and to torture none except to make them reveal desired information.
In 1884 two cowboys in the employment of the Sansimone Cattle Company were camped at Willow Springs, eighteen miles southwest of Skeleton Canyon, and not far from Old Mexico. Just at sundown their camp was surrounded by Apaches in war paint, who said that they had been at war with the Mexicans and wished to return to the United States. There were about seventy-five Indians in the whole tribe, the squaws and children coming up later. They had with them about one hundred and fifty Mexican horses. The Indians took possession of the camp and remained for about ten days, getting their supplies of meat by killing cattle of the company.
With this band of Indians was a white boy about fourteen years old, who had evidently been with them from infancy, for he could not speak a word of English, and did not understand much Spanish, but spoke the Apache language readily.
They would allow but one of the cowboys to leave camp at a time, keeping the other under guard. They had sentinels with spyglasses on all the hills and peaks surrounding the camp.
One evening when one of the cowboys, William Berne, had been allowed to pass out of the camp, he noticed an Indian dismounted and, as he approached, discovered that the Indian had him under range of his rifle. He immediately dismounted, and standing on the opposite side from the redskin, threw his own Winchester across his horse’s neck, when the Indian sprang on his horse and galloped toward him at full speed, making signs to him not to shoot, and when he approached him, dismounted and pointing to the ground, showed Berne many fresh deer tracks. Then, as an understanding had been established, the cowboy remounted and went on his way, leaving the Apache to hunt the deer.
One day when this cowboy was about ten miles from camp, he found two splendid horses of the Indians. These horses had strayed from the herd. Thinking that they would in a way compensate for the cattle the Apaches were eating, he drove them on for about five miles into a canyon where there was plenty of grass and water and left them there, intending to come back after the departure of the Indians and take possession of them.
On the tenth day after the arrival of this band of Indians, United States troops, accompanied by two Indians who had been sent to make the arrangements, arrived in camp, paid for the cattle the Apaches had eaten, took the Indians and their stock, and moved on toward Fort Bowie. The cowboys immediately started for the canyon where the two horses had been left, but had not gone far when they met two Indians driving these horses in front of them as they pushed on to overtake the tribe.
Evidently the shrewdness of the paleface had not outwitted the red man that time.
Geronimo says he was in no wise connected with the events herein mentioned, but refuses to state whether he knows anything about them. He holds it unmanly to tell of any depredations of red men except those for which he was responsible.
Such were the events transpiring in “Apache
