Adventure Magazine Cover — page 63: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

62 when he would own many cattle, like some of the settlers. All of this was very comfortable and to his taste, and because he liked it he held a firm stand against the suasions of warring chiefs from his and other tribes. He even came to cool terms with his relative Mangus Colorado, the greatest leader the Apaches had ever known. But while he was keeping to his position he had to listen to many an argument and many a tale of the white man’s treachery, and a man can not listen often without sometimes finding himself inclined to believe. Settler and soldier, so said Mangus Colorado and other men of parts among his people, regarded their promises to the In- dians as nothing; they were forever trying to entice the Apaches into conference and then taking advantage of them—sometimes by massacre. While he argued slowly against the impatient utterances of Lieu- tenant Bascom, reading the growing intol- erance in the other’s eyes, Cochise remem- bered some of the stories which he had frowned down when his people told them. THAT was the state of affairs when Lieutenant Bascom, with the cock- sureness of the young and the in- tolerance of the Easterner for a bunch of frowzy Indians, made a decision. To him it was evident that these tattered savages were lying; they were a treacherous lot at the best, and always thieves. So, now that he was getting sick of the whole long drawn- out business, he turned from the interpreter to his sergeant. “‘Arrest ’em,”’ he said. Cochise heard him and slipped to the rear of the tent as the troopers stepped forward. The other chiefs, who could understand no English, did not need an interpreter to tell them the meaning of this movement. At once the quiet of the Arizona night was shattered by the thud of blows and savage outcries. The crowded space within the tent was filled with struggling men. And while that fight went on, Cochise, aflame with hatred, outraged by this vio- lation of the sacred custom of conference, believing now every word that had been spoken to him by Mangus Colorado and - the other war-chiefs, whipped out his knife. The sound of the blade as it rent the canvas was drowned by the other noises, and when Lieutenant Bascom and his breathless Adventure troopers surveyed their bound captives Cochise was in full flight across the dark- ened plain. Now word was sent by courier to the agency and Government runners went forth that night to all parts of the reserva- ion, but they found no Indians to receive their messages: The Chiracahua Apaches were already riding toward their mountains where Mangus Colorado and the renegade members of their tribe were biding on the heights, like eagles resting on the rocky péaks before they take their next flight. Like roosting eagles the warriors of Mangus Colorado scanned the wide plains beneath the mountains. Their eyes went to the ragged summits of the ranges beyond. Now as the day was creeping across the long, flat reaches of the Sulphur Springs Valley, tipping the scarred crests of the Dragoons with light off to the west, touching the distant northern pinnacles of the Gra- hams with throbbing radiance, one of these lookouts beheld a thread of smoke unravel- ing against the bright morning sky. Under the newly risen sun Cochise and his followers were traveling hard away off there to the northward. The turbaned warriors came on first, half-naked, armed some of them with lances, some with bows and poisoned arrows, and a goodly number bearing rifles. Their lank brown legs moved ceaselessly in rhythm with the trotting of the little ponies; their moccasined heels thudded against the flanks of the animals. In the rear of the column the squaws rode with the children and the scanty baggage. As they traveled thus, an outrider departed — from the column to leave his horse upon an arid slope and climb afoot among the rocks above until he stood outlined against the clear hot sky, kindling a wisp of flame. Now he bent over the fire, casting bits of: powdered resin upon the blaze, holding a square of tattered blanket over it after the first puff of black smoke had risen, feeding it then with a scattering of green leaves which in their turn gave forth a cloud of white fumes. 2 And so the smoke thread unwound its length, showing itself in black and white; spelling forth, by the same system of dot and dash which the white man employs in his telegraph, the tidings of what had taken place back there in the Sibley tent. Gomichbook 1€@