Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/517

 the winds. You must be the one who sends the fresh fruits that come on the trees every year. There are many men in the world who are big chiefs and command many people, but you, I think, are the greatest of them all. I want you to be a father to me and treat me as your son. I want you to have pity on me. There is no doubt that all you do is right, because all you say is true. I trust in all you say; you do not deceive; all the things you tell us are facts. I am now in your hands. I place myself at your disposition to dispose of as you please. I shake your hand. I want to come right into your camp with my family and stay with you. I don't want to stay away at a distance. I want to be right where you are. I have roamed these mountains from water to water. Never have I found the place where I could see my father or mother until to-day. I see you, my father. I surrender to you now, and I don't want any more bad feeling or bad talk. I am going over to stay with you in your camp.

"Whenever a man raises anything, even a dog, he thinks well of it, and tries to raise it up, and treats it well. So I want you to feel towards me, and be good to me, and don't let people say bad things about me. Now I surrender to you and go with you. When we are travelling together on the road or anywhere else, I hope you'll talk to me once in a while. I think a great deal of 'Alchise' and 'Ka-e-ten-na'; they think a great deal of me. I hope some day to be all the same as their brother. [Shakes hands.] How long will it be before I can live with these friends?"

Despatches were sent ahead to Bowie to inform General Sheridan of the conference and its results; the Chiricahuas had considered three propositions: one, their own, that they be allowed to return to the reservation unharmed; the second, from General Crook, that they be placed in confinement for a term of years at a distance from the Agency, and that, if their families so desired, they be permitted to accompany them, leaving "Nané," who was old and superannuated, at Camp Apache; or, that they return to the war-path and fight it out. "Mangas," with thirteen of the Chiricahuas, six of them warriors, was not with "Geronimo," having left him some months previously and never reunited with him. He (General Crook) asked that instructions be sent him with as little delay as possible.