Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/208

 hope or a solace to sorrow. Reflection tells me that without the use of this great belt of timber the construction of the railroad from El Paso to the City of Mexico would have been attended with increased expense and enhanced difficulty—perhaps postponed for a generation—but, for all that, I cannot repress a sentiment of regret that the demands of civilization have caused the denudation of so many square miles of our forests in all parts of the timbered West.

Our camp was aroused every morning at two o'clock, and we were out on the road by four, making long marches and not halting until late in the afternoon. Camp Apache was reached by the time expected, and the work of getting together a force of scouts begun at once. One of the first young men to respond to the call for scouts to enlist in the work of ferreting out and subjugating the hostiles was "Na-kay-do-klunni," called afterwards by the soldiers "Bobby Doklinny." I have still in my possession, among other papers, the scrap of manuscript upon which is traced in lead pencil the name of this Apache, whom I enrolled among the very first at Camp Apache on this occasion. The work of enlistment was afterwards turned over to Lieutenant Alexander O. Brodie, of the First Cavalry, as I was obliged to leave with General Crook for the south. "Bobby," to adopt the soldiers' name, became in his maturity a great "medicine man" among his people, and began a dance in which he used to raise the spirits of his ancestors. Of course, he scared the people of the United States out of their senses, and instead of offering him a bonus for all the ghosts he could bring back to life, the troops were hurried hither and thither, and there was an "outbreak," as is always bound to be the case under such circumstances. "Bobby Doklinny" was killed, and with him a number of his tribe, while on our side there was grief for the death of brave officers and gallant men.

One of the white men met at Camp Apache was Corydon E. Cooley, who had married a woman of the Sierra Blanca band, and had acquired a very decided influence over them. Cooley's efforts were consistently in the direction of bringing about a better understanding between the two races, and so far as "Pedro's" and "Miguel's" people were concerned, his exertions bore good fruit. But it is of Mrs. Cooley I wish to speak