Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/638

630 weighed during the night, and found wanting—at the police station; for his place was vacant in the morning.

General Crook was not visible till late in the evening, as he was taking a much-needed rest; but he then gave an interview to the two sons and former law partner of the murdered Judge McComas, who, with his wife, was killed at a short distance only from Lordsburg, a station on the railroad about seventy miles from Willcox. The General gave the anxious young men much encouragement to hope that their little brother, Charley, who had been carried away by the Indians, was yet alive. He told them he was quite certain the little captive would be brought in within seven days, as he had detailed Indians acquainted with his whereabouts to search for him. Notwithstanding this assurance, subsequent events have proved our Indian fighter to be in error, as it would seem that Charley was not a long time even in captivity, but was brutally murdered not long after his capture.

The wily Indians well knew what an influence it would have in making subsequent terms for peace, if it should be thought that he was then alive and well, and we have many reasons for believing that the "Gray Fox," as they denominate General Crook, was outwitted by the untutored savage in several instances, and that the latter was chuckling, for more reasons than one, when, in reply to a question at an interview in the Sierras, the "Gray Fox" made a mistake in the word for his Apache appellation.

On the morning of the 17th of June, General Crook and his staff started in an ambulance for a military post in the interior. Early the same day a party of us bestrode some lively horses and rode out to Croton Springs, where we found Crook's command encamped, and already picketing their horses, while the Indians were scattered over the fields wherever their fancy seemed to have taken them. It was difficult to distinguish captives from captors, for the famed scouts were not in many instances better armed than their "prisoners," except that the last were mainly children and squaws, and the remainder old and decrepit men.