The desire to travel was strong within me, and in the following June I left Mankato, went out to Arizona and secured a position on the A. & P., at Blue Field, a small town almost in the centre of the desert. Alfreda, Kansas, was dreary and desolate enough, but there, I was at least in communication with civilization, because I had one wire running to Kansas City, while Blue Field was the crowning glory of utter desolation. The Bible says that the good Lord made heaven and earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. It needed but a single glance at Blue Field to thoroughly convince me that the Lord quit work at the end of the sixth day right there, and had never taken it up since. There was nothing but some scattering adobe shacks, with the usual complement of saloons, and as far almost as the eye could see in every direction,—sand—hot, glaring, burning sand. To the far northwards, could be The Arizona climate is a well known specific for pulmonary troubles, and thousands of people The first station west of me was Clear Creek (so called on account of a good sized stream of water that came down from the Mogollons), and a few days after I arrived at Blue Field, I heard a message going over the wires saying that Fred Baird was coming down there to take charge. I had known him up in Kansas, and his looks and a hacking cough indicated only too truly, that the dreaded consumption had fastened itself on him; therefore when I heard of his assignment to Clear Creek, I knew it was his health that brought him down to that awful country. He had a wife (and a sweet little woman she was), and two beautiful children, aged two and four. A few evenings after this I had the pleasure of talking to them for several minutes as they went through on a slow passenger train, and I must say that my heart ached when I thought of the town to which that family was going. What a place to bring a woman? But then women have a faculty of hanging on to their liege lords under all circumstances and conditions. God bless 'em. Baird, himself, looked wretched, being a mere shadow of Just about this time, two Indian gentlemen, named Geronimo and Victoria, were raising particular mischief all through that section of the country, and the feeling that any moment they might come down on you and raise your scalp after puncturing you full of holes was anything but pleasant. It was decidedly creepy and many a time I wished myself back in the good old state of Texas. I had come for excitement and adventure and it was not long until I had both articles doled out to me in large chunks. Those Indians used to break out from their reservations, swoop down on some settlement, kill everything in sight and then loot and burn to their heart's content. There was no warning—just a few shots, then a shrill war-whoop, and a perfect horde of yelling and shooting red devils would be upon you. Precautions were taken and some of the larger settlements were able to stand them off until some of the small army could come and scatter them. Blue Field had pickets posted every night, chosen from among the four hundred toughs that lived there, and was pretty well protected. They gave us a wide berth for a while, but one night, I was sitting dozing in my chair about "One of them picked up the lantern, and swaggering over to where I sat all trembling...." The side towards the door was all ablaze and escape that way was impossible, so I picked up a chair and slammed it through the window over the table, and climbed out taking a loose set of instruments with me. The wires were still working, "Indians—depot on fire—have saved a set of instruments—will call you later when I can fix a wire," and signed my name, "Bates." My lungs were filled with smoke and felt like they had a million sharp needles sticking in them, but thanks to my lucky stars, I was not otherwise hurt. Everything appeared so quiet and still that I was dazed, but presently I heard a low mumbling of voices out to the westwards. I made my way thither and found the population (all that was left of it), assembled. When I staggered up to a group of the men, they turned on me like tigers, not knowing what kind of an animal I was. I recognized one of them who was commonly known as "Full-House Charley," and weakly said, "Don't shoot, Charley, it's Bates the night operator at the depot." "Well! where the devil have you been all the time? When the depot was burning some of us went over there, but you'd gone some place. We couldn't save anything so we let 'er burn. Your side partner, the day man, was killed and scalped." It appeared that just as the fight was the hottest, three troops of the —th U. S. Colored Cavalry, I told the gang where I had been, and in a few minutes several of them went over to the station to help me rig up a wire. I knew the despatcher's wire, and taking a pole's length out of another line, I soon made a connection to the instrument I had saved. It was no go—the wire was dead open. Then I rigged up a ground by running a wire to a pipe that ran down the well, and in testing I found the wire was open west. I called up "DS," who was east of-me, and told him what a nice hot old time we had been having out there. "Yes," he said, "I knew there was trouble. Just after you told me about the Indians and fire, Clear Creek said their place was attacked by another band and things were getting pretty hot with them. Then the wire went open, caused as I supposed by your fire, but now it seems as if Baird is probably up against it as well. A train load of troops will come through in a short while to try and get beyond the Indians and cut them My experiences had been so exciting and the smoke in my lungs so painful, that I was ready to drop from fatigue; but then I thought of poor Fred Baird and his family, and I said I'd go. The troop train came in presently and I boarded her. It did my heart good to ride on that engine with "Daddy" Blake at the throttle, and think that four hundred big husky American regulars were trailing along behind, waiting for something to turn up and just aching for a crack at the red men. It was now about three o'clock, and just as the first rays of early dawn illumined the horizon, we came in sight of Clear Creek. There was a dull red glow against the sky, that told only too well what we should find. The place had not been as well protected as Blue Field, and the slaughter was something fearful. The depot was nothing but a smoldering mass of ruins, and but a short The next day the troops corralled the Indians, gave them a good licking and sent them back to their old reservations. And yet in face of just such incidents as these, there are people who say that poor Lo can be civilized. A construction gang came out and started to re-build, and the company offered me a good day office if I would remain, but Nay! Nay! I had had all I wanted of Arizona, and I went back to Texas, thankful that I had a whole skin and a full shock of red hair. |