Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/192

 through the commanding officer, who was the court of last appeal. One day "Hualpai Charlie" came running in like an antelope, all out of breath, his eyes blazing with excitement: "Cappy Byrne—get yo' sogy—heap quick. White man over da Min'nul Pa'k, all bloke out." An investigation was made, and developed the cause of "Charlie's" apprehensions: the recently established mining town of "Mineral Park" in the Cerbat range had "struck it rich," and was celebrating the event in appropriate style; bands of miners, more or less sober, were staggering about in the one street, painting the town red. There was the usual amount of shooting at themselves and at the few lamps in the two saloons, and "Charlie," who had not yet learned that one of the inalienable rights of the Caucasian is to make a fool of himself now and then, took fright, and ran in the whole fourteen miles to communicate the first advices of the "outbreak" to his commanding officer and friend.

Captain Byrne was most conscientious in all his dealings with these wild, suspicious people, and gained their affection to an extent not to be credited in these days, when there seems to be a recurrence to the ante-bellum theory that the only good Indian—be it buck, squaw, or puling babe—is the dead one. I have seen the old man coax sulking warriors back into good humor, and persuade them that the best thing in the world for them all was the good-will of the Great Father. "Come now, Sharum," I have heard him say, "shure phat is de matther wid yiz? Have yiz ivir axed me for anythin' that oi didn't promise it to yiz?"

Poor Tommy was cut off too soon in life to redeem all his pledges, and I fear that there is still a balance of unpaid promises, comprehending mouth organs, hoop skirts, velocipedes, anything that struck the fancy of a chief and for which he made instant demand upon his military patron. To carry matters forward a little, I wish to say that Tommy remained the "frind," as he pronounced the term, of the Hualpais to the very last, and even after he had been superseded by the civil agent, or acting agent, he remained at the post respected and regarded by all the tribe as their brother and adviser.

Like a flash of lightning out of a clear sky, the Hualpais went on the war-path, and fired into the agency buildings before leaving for their old strongholds in the Cañon of the Colorado. No one knew why they had so suddenly shown this treacherous