Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/188



THE PICTURESQUE TOWN OF PRESCOTT—THE APACHES ACTIVE NEAR PRESCOTT—"TOMMY" BYRNE AND THE HUALPAIS—THIEVING INDIAN AGENTS—THE MOJAVES, PI-UTES AND AVA-SUPAIS—THE TRAVELS OF FATHERS ESCALANTE AND GARCES—THE GODS OF THE HUALPAIS—THE LORING MASSACRE—HOW PHIL DWYER DIED AND WAS BURIED—THE INDIAN MURDERERS AT CAMP DATE CREEK PLAN TO KILL CROOK—MASON JUMPS THE RENEGADES AT THE "MUCHOS CAÑONES"—DELT-CHE AND CHA-LIPUN GIVE TROUBLE—THE KILLING OF BOB WHITNEY.

A few words should be spoken in praise of a community which of all those on the southwestern frontier preserved the distinction of being thoroughly American. Prescott was not merely picturesque in location and dainty in appearance, with all its houses neatly painted and surrounded with paling fences and supplied with windows after the American style—it was a village transplanted bodily from the centre of the Delaware, the Mohawk, or the Connecticut valley. Its inhabitants were Americans; American men had brought American wives out with them from their old homes in the far East, and these American wives had not forgotten the lessons of elegance and thrift learned in childhood. Everything about the houses recalled the scenes familiar to the dweller in the country near Pittsburgh or other busy community. The houses were built in American style; the doors were American doors and fastened with American bolts and locks, opened by American knobs, and not closed by letting a heavy cottonwood log fall against them.

The furniture was the neat cottage furniture with which all must be familiar who have ever had the privilege of entering an American country home; there were carpets, mirrors, rocking-chairs, tables, lamps, and all other appurtenances, just as one might expect to find them in any part of our country excepting