Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/478

 422 Not many years since, a party of General Crook's Apache soldiers had camped by night close to a pretty mountain-spring under the shadow of a clump of scruboaks. They were all warriors of repute, priding themselves upon valour in battle. Conversation flowed unchecked, with no thought of danger to mar its merriment. Suddenly, from the branches above their heads, rang out the ominous cry, "Boo-hoo! Boo-hoo!" Fear lent speed to their limbs and drove them in flight from their camp-fire.

The names of the dead are never mentioned among the Apaches. They preserve upon this subject a religious silence, broken only in those exceptional instances where, after the lapse of years, the clansmen of the deceased may see fit to perpetuate his memory by imposing his name upon a young child.

The Apaches on the Verde (Arizona) Reservation, in 1873, used to be very fond of frequenting the trader's store. They soon wore out their welcome, and became a great nuisance. The clerk, a young gentleman of leisure, was desirous of introducing a system of hours which should give him from half-past nine in the morning until six in the evening for a siesta upon the counter. He was one of those persons who, as we are told, were born tired. Just as soon as he had stretched himself out for a snooze, the door would fly wide open, letting in a stream of sunlight. Apaches, and flies. The Apaches would squat on the floor, while the burning rays would irradiate the young counter-jumper's face and the buzzing flies seek a roosting-place in his gaping mouth. Such a state of things could not be allowed to continue unchecked. Our mercantile fledgling was only human, and eased his weary soul as much as possible by copious profanity, none of which did him the slightest good, the Apaches not understanding a word of it. But, by chance, he learned of this abhorrence of anything connected with the names of the dead.

One of his tormentors died suddenly, and George—that