Part 10

"O, we will give you charge of the Indians, you are acquainted with them."

So I was appointed "Superintendent of Indian Affairs." The salary of the office was two thousand dollars a year, payable in greenbacks worth about thirty-three cents on the dollar in the currency of Arizona.

Arrangements were made for the transportation of my new colleagues across the plains at government expense; but I took Ben Holladay's coach at Kansas City, and crossed the continent to Sacramento, and thence by river steamer to San Francisco. The Indian goods had been shipped to Yuma.

In San Francisco I met my old friend, J. Ross Browne, who had just returned from Europe, and invited him to accompany me through Arizona at my expense. He afterwards wrote an account of the journey, "Wanderings in the Apache Country," published by Harpers.

Archbishop Alemany, whom I had known as a parish priest in Kentucky, called upon me in San Francisco, and asked if I would take a couple of priests down to Arizona, to restore the service among the Indians at the old Mission of San Xavier del Bac on the Santa Cruz, to which I assented with great pleasure.

After a voyage by sea from San Francisco to Los Angeles, I presented my orders from the Secretary of War to the commanding officer at Drumm Barracks for an escort of cavalry and transportation to Arizona; and prepared for the journey across the Colorado Desert.

We arrived at Yuma just before Christmas, and during Christmas week regaled the Yumas, Cocopas, and neighboring tribes of Indians with their first presents from Uncle Sam. After distributing the Indian goods at Yuma, we proceeded upon the Gila River some two hundred miles to the Pima village, where my old friends, the Pima Indians, gave a warm welcome, not entirely on account of the Indian goods.

At the Pima villages one Sunday, I requested the priests to celebrate the mass, and tell the Indians something about God,--remembering my own failure in teaching theology. The troops were drawn up, the Indians assembled, and Father Bosco through my interpreter preached the first sermon the Pima Indians ever heard.

At dinner, the good Father took me by the ear, and said, "What for you make me preach to these savages?--they squat on the ground, and laugh at me like monkeys."

The next place for the distribution of Indian goods was at the Mission of San Xavier del Bac, three leagues south of Tucson, among the Papagos, a christianized branch of the great Pima tribe. The Papago chiefs were my old friends and acquaintances, and received the priests with fireworks and illuminations. They knew of our coming, and had swept the church and grounds clean, and ornamented the altar with mistletoe.

The Indians had been expecting the priests for many years,----

For the Jesuits told them long ago As sure as the water continued to flow, The sun to shine, and the grass to grow, They would come again to the Papago.

I installed the priests in the old Mission buildings, and turned over the goods intended for the Papagos for distribution at their convenience.

I met an old friend at the Mission called "Buckskin Alick," who had lived there all through the war without reading a newspaper or changing his clothes. As nails were scarce, Buckskin Alick had constructed a mill held together by rawhides, and was grinding wheat for the Papagos. In the meantime he had taken up with a Papago girl, to the scandal of the tribe. The priests told him he must marry the girl or leave. He appealed to me for protection, but I told him I had resigned my sacerdotal functions to the priest. He married the girl, and kept the mill.

In 1863 a considerable number of prospectors had come into Arizona, mostly from the California side, on account of discoveries of gold on the Hassayamp. Old Pauline Weaver was the discoverer, as he had been a trapper and pioneer since 1836. His name is carved on the walls of the Casa Grande with that date.

The gold washers there were doing very well, and ranches began to be established on the river. But the Apaches were not inclined to leave the settlers in peace when they had some fine horses and mules, and some fat cattle. So the Tonto Apaches made a raid on the Hassayamp, and carried off nearly all the stock.

King Woolsey had come into the country then, and was a prominent man among the settlers, and undoubtedly a very brave one; so he raised a company to go after the Tontos. (As every one knows, "tonto" means "fool.")

There were not more than twenty-five men, including some friendly Maricopas. They were well armed, but their commisariat consisted principally of panole and jerkey.

They followed the Indians across the Verde to a place about half way between Globe and the Silver King, where they came to a parley. The tanks there are surrounded by rough ledges of basalt rocks, and the country in the vicinity is covered by scoriae, as though a volcano had vomited the refuse of the subterranean world to disfigure nature.

The Indians came in slowly for a talk, but were insolent and defiant. Delshay, the Tonto chief, demanded a blanket and some coffee and whisky. The Americans had neither coffee nor whisky for their own use, and he was quite put out about it, but partook of panole and jerked beef.

The parley was very unsatisfactory, as the Indians were surly, and made demands which it was impossible to grant. There were about twenty-five Indians at the council, and fifty or more on the surrounding ledges. As the Indians became more hostile the situation became more serious, and it was evident to the Americans that they were surrounded, and in imminent danger of massacre.

Woolsey was not only a brave but a very intelligent man, and he saw at once that either the Americans or the Indians were to be slaughtered, so he said: "Boys, we have got to die or get out of this. Each of you pick out your Indian, and I will shoot the chief for a signal."

The fusillade commenced, and all the Indians that could run stampeded. The only American killed was Lennon, a half brother of Ammi White, my Indian agent at the Pima villages.

Lennon had picked out his Indian and sent a bullet to his heart; but the Indian in the agonies of death made a lunge at Lennon with his spear and transfixed him. They both fell at the Bloody Tanks in the embrace of death.

The Americans rescued Lennon's body, and having strapped it over a pack mule, carried it away to the next camp, where it was buried with Christian services at the foot of an aspen tree.

The Americans brought away twenty-four scalps.

After the Bloody Tanks affair some of the men engaged in it came into the Pima villages, where I was in camp. J. Ross Browne, who was with me, took down the account in short hand, and I made a list of the Americans engaged in the expedition. I remember, when Browne got through with his stenography, he asked one of the men if he had any Indian relics. The man replied, "Yes, I have got some jerked years," and he presented Browne about a dozen "jerked years" strung on buckskin.

I concluded to make a scout up country and see what was going on among the Indians, and as there were no troops at my command I organized a company of Pimas and Maricopas as scouts. They had recently received arms and ammunition from the government, and I had uniforms and swords enough for the officers. They soon learned to drill, and already knew how to shoot.