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Updated: May 8, 2025
Then he swung himself into the saddle and rode away, straight down the narrow arroyo, out beyond its lower widening, into the vast plains the hither side of the Chiricahuas. The alkali dust was snatched by the wind from beneath his horse's feet. Smaller and smaller he dwindled, rising and falling, rising and falling in the monotonous cow-pony's lope.
The words sounded as remote as if the speaker bestrode some peak of the Chiricahuas to address a pygmy in a canyon below. "I know of no law which states that I may not employ whom I choose on my own land. If a man does his job and makes no trouble, his past does not matter. I am as ready to fire a former Union soldier as I am a Confederate—"
The hard, uncompromising ranges, twenty miles to eastward, had softened behind a wonderful veil of purple and pink, vivid as the chiffon of a girl's gown. To the south and southwest the Chiricahuas and Dragoons were lost in thunderclouds which flashed and rumbled.
But there were two elements in the problem Capitan Pasqual had failed to consider, Lieutenant Drummond's scout in the Christobal, Cochises's band of Chiricahuas in the Santa Maria.
The wild tribes of Arizona, with the exception of one specially exempted band of Chiricahuas and a few hopeless desperadoes with a price on their heads, were gathered to their reservations a most unheard-of thing in all previous annals of the territory and a season of unprecedented gayety had dawned on the post of Fort Whipple and the adjacent martial settlement, the homes of the staff and their families.
There, about fifty feet away, climbing up the hill on mighty tired hosses, was a dozen of the ugliest Chiricahuas you ever don't want to meet, and in addition a Mexican renegade named Maria, who was worse than any of 'em. I see at once their hosses was tired out, and they had a notion of camping at my water hole, not knowing nothing about the Ole Virginia mine.
We witnessed the start of many Indian campaigns, participated in a few little brushes with the Chiricahuas, saw the beginning of the cattle-rustling. A man had not much opportunity to think of anything but what he had right on hand, but I found time for a few speculations on Tim.
Blindly he searched for dusky Apache skulking from rock to rock; there was no moving thing in sight. But what was this, this object that suddenly shot out from behind a little ledge and, turning sharply to the left, went clattering into the depths of a dark and frowning gorge? Could he believe his eyes? Did the Chiricahuas, then, have horses and wear trooper hats?
Then, at the drift fences, he had fought one of his battles. But it was impossible adequately to patrol all parts of a range bigger than some Eastern States. Buck Johnson did his best, but it was like stopping with sand the innumerable little leaks of a dam. Did his riders watch toward the Chiricahuas, then a score of beef steers disappeared from Grant's Pass forty miles away.
Stillwell recovered his dignity as soon as he caught his breath, and he advanced with a rueful face. "Wal, boys, it's on Bill," he said. "I'm a livin' proof of the pig-headedness of mankind. Ed, you win. You're captain of the team. You hit straight, an' if I hadn't been obstructin' the general atmosphere that ball would sure have gone clear to the Chiricahuas."
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