In the seventies and early eighties the hostility of the various Apache Indian tribes was at its height, and there was scarcely a man in the Territory who had not at some time felt the dread of these implacable enemies.

By frequent raids on emigrants' wagons and on freighting outfits, the Indians had succeeded in arming themselves fairly successfully with the rifle of the white man; and they kept themselves in ammunition by raids on lonely ranches and by "jumping" or ambushing prospectors and lone travelers. If a man was outnumbered by Apaches he often shot himself, for he knew that if captured he would probably be tortured by one of the fiendish methods made use of by these Indians. If he had a woman with him it was an act of kindness to shoot her, too, for to her, also, even if the element of torture were absent, captivity with the Indians would invariably be an even sadder fate.

Sometimes bands of whites would take the place of the soldiers and revenge themselves on Apache raiders. There was the raid on the Wooster ranch, for instance. This ranch was near Tubac. Wooster lived alone on the ranch with his wife and one hired man. One morning Apaches swooped down on the place, killed Wooster and carried off his wife. As she has never been heard of since it has always been supposed that she was killed. This outrage resulted in the famous "Camp Grant Massacre," the tale of which echoed all over the world, together with indignant protests from centers of culture in the East that the whites of Arizona were "more savage" than the savages themselves. I leave it to the reader to judge whether this was a fact.

The Wooster raid and slaughter was merely the culminating tragedy of a series of murders, robberies and depredations carried on by the Apaches for years. Soldiers would follow the raiders, kill a few of them in retaliation, and a few days later another outrage would be perpetrated. The Apaches were absolutely fearless in the warfare they carried on for possession of what they, rightly or wrongly, considered their invaded territory. The Apache with the greatest number of murders to his name was most highly thought of by his tribe.

When the Wooster raid occurred I was in Tucson. Everybody in Tucson knew Wooster and liked him. There was general mourning and a cry for instant revenge when his murder was heard of. For a long time it had been believed that the Indians wintering on the government reservation at Camp Grant, at the expense of Uncle Sam, were the authors of the numerous raids in the vicinity of Tucson, though until that time it had been hard to convince the authorities that such was the case. This time, however, it became obvious that something had to be done.

The white men of Tucson held a meeting, at which I was present. Sidney R. De Long, first Mayor of Tucson, was also there. After the meeting had been called to order De Long rose and said:

"Boys, this thing has got to be stopped. The military won't believe us when we tell them that their charity to the Indians is our undoing—that the government's wards are a pack of murderers and cattle thieves. What shall we do?"

"Let the military go hang, and the government, too!" growled one man, "Old Bill" Oury, a considerable figure in the life of early Tucson, and an ex-Confederate soldier.

The meeting applauded.

"We can do what the soldiers won't," I said.

"Right!" said Oury, savagely. "Let's give these devils a taste of their own medicine. Maybe after a few dozen of 'em are killed they'll learn some respect for the white man."

Nobody vetoed the suggestion.

The following day six white men—myself, De Long and fierce old Bill Oury among them, rode out of Tucson bound for Tubac. With us we had three Papago Indian trailers. Arrived at the Wooster ranch the Papagos were set to work and followed a trail that led plain as daylight to the Indian camp at Fort Grant. A cry escaped all of us at this justification of our suspicions.

"That settles it!" ground out Oury, between his set teeth. "It's them Injuns or us. And—it won't be us."

We returned to Tucson, rounded up a party consisting of about fifty Papagos, forty-five Mexicans and ourselves, and set out for Camp Grant. We reached the fort at break of day, or just before, and before the startled Apaches could fully awaken to what was happening, or the near-by soldiers gather their wits together, eighty-seven Aravaipa Apaches had been slain as they lay. The Papagos accounted for most of the dead, but we six white men and our Mexican friends did our part. It was bloody work; but it was justice, and on the frontier then the whites made their own justice.

All of us were arrested, as a matter of course, and when word reached General Sherman at Washington from the commander of the military forces at Fort Grant, an order was issued that all of us were to be tried for murder. We suffered no qualms, for we knew that according to frontier standards what we had done was right, and would inevitably have been done some time or another by somebody. We were tried in Judge Titus' Territorial Court, but, to the dismay of the military and General Sherman, who of course knew nothing of the events that had preceded the massacre, not a man in the jury could be found who would hang us. The Territory was searched for citizens impartial enough to adjudge the slaying of a hostile Apache as murder, but none could be found. The trial turned out a farce and we were all acquitted, to receive the greatest demonstration outside the courtroom that men on trial for their lives ever received in Arizona, I think. One thing that made our acquittal more than certain was the fact, brought out at the trial, that the dress of Mrs. Wooster and a pair of moccasins belonging to her husband were found on the bodies of Indians whom we killed. Lieutenant Whitman, who was in command at Fort Grant, and on whom the responsibility for the conduct of the Indians wintering there chiefly rested, was soon after relieved from duty and transferred to another post. General George Crook arrived to take his place late in 1871. The massacre had occurred on the last day of April of that year.

Other raids occurred. Al Peck, an old and valued friend of mine, had several experiences with the Apaches, which culminated in the Peck raid of April 27, 1886, when Apaches jumped his ranch, killed his wife and a man named Charles Owens and carried off Peck's niece. Apparently satisfied with this, they turned Peck loose, after burning the ranch house. The unfortunate man's step-niece was found some six weeks later by Mexican cowpunchers in the Cocoapi Mountains in Old Mexico.

The famous massacre of the Samaniego freight teams and the destruction of his outfit at Cedar Springs, between Fort Thomas and Wilcox, was witnessed by Charles Beck, another friend of mine. Beck had come in with a quantity of fruit and was unloading it when he heard a fusilade of shots around a bend in the road. A moment later a boy came by helter-skelter on a horse.

"Apaches!" gasped the boy, and rode on.

Beck waited to hear no more. He knew that to attack one of Samaniego's outfits there must be at least a hundred Indians in the neighborhood. Unhitching his horse, he jumped on its back and rode for dear life in the direction of Eureka Springs. Indians sighted him as he swept into the open and followed, firing as they rode. By luck, however, and the fact that his horse was fresher than those of his pursuers, Beck got safely away.

Thirteen men were killed at this Cedar Springs massacre and thousands of dollars' worth of freight was carried off or destroyed. The raid was unexpected owing to the fact that the Samaniego brothers had contracts with the government and the stuff in their outfit was intended for the very Indians concerned in the ambuscade. One of the Samaniegos was slain at this massacre.

Then there was the Tumacacori raid, at Barnett's ranch in the Tumacacori Mountains, when Charlie Murray and Tom Shaw were killed. Old Man Frenchy, as he was called, suffered the severe loss of his freight and teams when the Indians burned them up across the Cienega. Many other raids occurred, particulars of which are not to hand, but those I have related will serve as samples of the work of the Indians and will show just how it was the Apaches gained the name they did of being veritable fiends in human form.

After the expiration of my contract with Paola Ortega I remained in a state of single blessedness for some time, and then married Gregoria Sosa, in the summer of 1879. Gregoria rewarded me with one child, a boy, who is now living in Nogales. On December 23, 1889, Gregoria died and in October, 1890, I married my present wife, whose maiden name was Donna Paz Paderes, and who belongs to an old line of Spanish aristocracy in Mexico. We are now living together in the peace and contentment of old age, well occupied in bringing up and providing for our family of two children, Mary, who will be twenty years old on February 25, 1915, and Charlie, who will be sixteen on the same date. Both our children, by the grace of God, have been spared us after severe illnesses.

To make hundreds of implacable enemies at one stroke is something any man would very naturally hesitate to do, but I did just that about a year after I commenced working for D. A. Sanford, one of the biggest ranchers between the railroad and the border. The explanation of this lies in one word—sheep.

If there was one man whom cattlemen hated with a fierce, unreasoning hatred, it was the man who ran sheep over the open range—a proceeding perfectly legal, but one which threatened the grazing of the cattle inasmuch as where sheep had grazed it was impossible for cattle to feed for some weeks, or until the grass had had time to grow again. Sheep crop almost to the ground and feed in great herds, close together, and the range after a herd of sheep has passed over it looks as if somebody had gone over it with a lawnmower.

In 1881 I closed out the old Sanford ranch stock and was informed by my employer that he had foreclosed a mortgage on 13,000 head of sheep owned by Tully, Ochoa and De Long of Tucson. This firm was the biggest at that time in the Territory and the De Long of the company was one of the six men who led the Papagos in the Camp Grant Massacre. He died in Tucson recently and I am now the only white survivor of that occurrence. Tully, Ochoa and De Long were forced out of business by the coming of the railroad in 1880, which cheapened things so much that the large stock held by the company was sold at prices below what it had cost, necessitating bankruptcy.I was not surprised to hear that Sanford intended to run sheep, though I will admit that the information was scarcely welcome. Sheep, however, at that time were much scarcer than cattle and fetched, consequently, much higher prices. My employer, D. A. Sanford, who now lives in Washington, D. C., was one of the shrewdest business men in the Territory, and was, as well, one of the best-natured of men. His business acumen is testified to by the fact that he is now sufficiently wealthy to count his pile in the seven figures.

Mr. Sanford's wishes being my own in the matter, of course, I did as I was told, closed out the cattle stock and set the sheep grazing on the range. The cattlemen were angry and sent me an ultimatum to the effect that if the sheep were not at once taken off the grass there would be "trouble." I told them that Sanford was my boss, not them; that I would take his orders and nobody else's, and that until he told me to take the sheep off the range they'd stay precisely where they were.

My reply angered the cattlemen more and before long I became subject to many annoyances. Sheep were found dead, stock was driven off, my ranch hands were shot at, and several times I myself narrowly escaped death at the hands of the enraged cattlemen. I determined not to give in until I received orders to that effect from Mr. Sanford, but I will admit that it was with a feeling of distinct relief that I hailed those orders when they came three years later. For one thing, before the sheep business came up, most of the cattlemen who were now my enemies had been my close friends, and it hurt me to lose their esteem. I am glad to say, however, that most of these cattlemen and cowboys, who, when I ran sheep, would cheerfully have been responsible for my funeral, are my very good friends at the present time; and I trust they will always remain so. Most of them are good fellows and I have always admitted that their side had the best argument.

In spite of the opposition of the cattlemen I made the sheep business a paying one for Mr. Sanford, clearing about $17,000 at the end of three years. When that period had elapsed I had brought shearers to Sanford Station to shear the sheep, but was stopped in my intention with the news that Sanford had sold the lot to Pusch and Zellweger of Tucson. I paid off the men I had hired, satisfied them, and thus closed my last deal in the sheep business. One of the men, Jesus Mabot, I hired to go to the Rodeo with me, while the Chinese gardener hired another named Fernando.

Then occurred that curious succession of fatalities among the Chinamen in the neighborhood that puzzled us all for years and ended by its being impossible to obtain a Chinaman to fill the last man's place.