Adventure Magazine Cover — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

ie hed a J =<~r4 ,) fy i. ‘See Bs 7 Cochise YF FROM his nook in the Chiracahuas # @ the watching warrior read its mes- sage. And long before the first faint haze of mounting dust betrayed the approach of the fugitives, Mangus Colorado knew that his nephew and his nephew’s people had quit the reservation and the ra- tions of meat and flour to make their living henceforth as their savage forbears had made theirs as far back as the memory of the oldest traditions went—by marauding. So he gathered all his forces and welcomed “Cochise into a council, where they planned their first series of raids against the white men. In this manner Cochise reverted to the customs of his ancestors, customs which had come gradually to the Apaches when they wandered down from Athabasca, passing southward through regions held by hostile tribes, snatching their sustenance from these enemies, fleeing before superior forces of warriors, until they reached the flaming deserts down by the Mexican border, past masters of the arts of ambush and raid and retreat, owning no longer any love of home or knowledge of tepee building; nomads who made their lodges by spreading skins or blankets over the tops of bushes which they had tied together; to whom the long march had become an ingrained habit andall thearts of bloody ambush an instinctive pleasure. Now he devoted all his mind and bent his talents to these wiles of Apache warfare; he directed his young men in making a living for the rest of the tribe by theft and murder. His uncle, Mangus Colorado, was the most skilful leader the Apaches had ever known, a marvelously tall savage with an enormous head. Cochise learned from him and in time surpassed him as a general. _. For nearly a decade and a half he made a plunder ground of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, extending his forays away down across the line into Sonora and Chihuahua until a remarkable man among his white enemies came to him and, by a daring bit of frontier diplomacy, put an end to the bloodiest outbreak in the history of the Southwest. But in the beginning there was neither diplomat nor general among the white men. The days before the Civil War witnessed a withdrawal of the troops from Arizona and the Apaches had things pretty much their own way. From their home in the Chiraca- hua Mountains they rode westward across 63 the wide reaches of the Sulphur Springs Valley to the ridges of the Catalinas away beyond the San Pedro, then turned south- ward, making their way toward Mexico by the Whetstone and the Huachuca ranges, Now, as they marched along the heights, they paused at times to send bands of war- riors down into the flat lands which lie along the course of the Santa Cruz. Here were ranches and a few small settlements. It was the custom of the raiders to steal upon these places, always in force superior to that of their enemies, camouflaging themselves by bits of brush and handfuls of earth which they stuck among the folds of their turbans and spread over their bare backs until .one looking at them from a distance of twenty-five yards would never suspect the presence of lurking warriors. In this manner they lay along the road- side biding the passing of wagon-trains and stages, or crept up on ranch-houses, or wormed their way toward sleeping prospec- tors at the hour of dawn. And when they knew that the issue was safely in their hands they opened fire. : During the Civil War times they put the Butterfield stage line out of business and were a main factor in determining the north- ern route for the carrying of the U. S. mails to California; they wiped out the ranches of the valleys until cattle-raising and agricul- ture ceased entirely; they raided the pueblo of Tubac until its people finally fled for safety to Tucson and then they burned the deserted buildings. They made a howling waste out of southeastern Arizona. Travel was suspended; there was no ranching and nearly every mine in this portion of the territory was abandoned. Of northern Sonora they made a source of supply for their horses and drove whole herds out of Mexico, using the surplus animals for food, keeping the rest for mounts until these knuckled under from hard treatment. During the years that followed the Civil War those fat days came to anend. Fresh troops were sent out from Washington. Mangus Colorado was captured by a de- tachment of cavalry and,.according to the story of one who was present, was killed in his blankets by the troopers who guarded him. White settlers, stung to reprisals by the barbarity of successive massacres, hunted down several bands of the Apaches at their rancherias and wiped them out in CoOTpnicloookSse©