Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/244

 pneumonia; there was no medical officer with our small command, and all we could do was based upon ignorance and inexperience, no matter how much we might desire to help him. Almy hoped that upon descending from the high lands into the warm valley of the Verde, the change would be beneficial to our patient; but he was either too far gone or too weak to respond, and the only thing left for us to do was to go into bivouac and try the effect of rest and quiet. For two days we had carried Monje in a chair made of mescal stalks strapped to the saddle, but he was by this time entirely too weak to sit up, and we were all apprehensive of the worst. It was a trifle after midnight, on the morning of the 23d of March, 1873, that "the change" came, and we saw that it was a matter of minutes only until we should have a death in our camp; he died before dawn and was buried immediately after sunrise, under the shadow of a graceful cottonwood, alongside of two pretty springs whose babbling waters flowed in unison with the music of the birds. In Monje's honor we named the cañon "Dead Man's Cañon," and as such it is known to this day.

At Camp Verde we found assembled nearly all of Crook's command, and a dirtier, greasier, more uncouth-looking set of officers and men it would be hard to encounter anywhere. Dust, soot, rain, and grime had made their impress upon the canvas suits which each had donned, and with hair uncut for months and beards growing with straggling growth all over the face, there was not one of the party who would venture to pose as an Adonis; but all were happy, because the campaign had resulted in the unconditional surrender of the Apaches and we were now to see the reward of our hard work. On the 6th of April, 1873, the Apache-Mojave chief " Cha-lipun" (called "Charley Pan" by the Americans), with over three hundred of his followers, made his unconditional submission to General Crook; they represented twenty-three hundred of the hostiles.

General Crook sat on the porch of Colonel Coppinger's quarters and told the interpreters that he was ready to hear what the Indians had to say, but he did not wish too much talk. "Cha-lipun" said that he had come in, as the representative of all the Apaches, to say that they wanted to surrender because General Crook had "too many cartridges of copper" ("demasiadas cartuchos de cobre"). They had never been afraid of the Amer