Читать книгу On The Border With Crook - John Gregory Bourke - Страница 7

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SOME OF THE FRIENDS MET IN OLD TUCSON—JACK LONG—HIS DIVORCE—MARSHAL DUFFIELD AND “WACO BILL”—“THEM ’ERE’S MEE VISITIN’ KEE-YARD”—JUDGE TITUS AND CHARLES O. BROWN—HOW DUFFIELD WAS KILLED—UNCLE BILLY N—— AND HIS THREE GLASS EYES—AL. GARRETT—DOCTOR SEMIG AND LIEUTENANT SHERWOOD—DON ESTEVAN OCHOA—BISHOP SALPOINTE—PETE KITCHEN AND HIS RANCH.

“SEE yar, muchacho, move roun’ lively now, ’n’ git me a Jinny Lin’ steak.” It was a strong, hearty voice which sounded in my ears from the table just behind me in the “Shoo Fly,” and made me mechanically turn about, almost as much perplexed as was the waiter-boy, Miguel, by the strange request.

“Would you have any objection, sir, to letting me know what you mean by a Jenny Lind steak?”

“A Jinny Lin’ steak, mee son, ’s a steak cut from off a hoss’s upper lip. I makes it a rule allers to git what I orders; ’n’ ez far ’s I kin see, I’ll get a Jinny Lin’ steak anyhow in this yere outfit, so I’m kinder takin’ time by the fetlock, ’n’ orderin’ jes’ what I want. My name’s Jack Long; what mout your’n be?”

It was apparent, at half a glance, that Jack Long was not “in sassiety,” unless it might be a “sassiety” decidedly addicted to tobacco, given to the use of flannel instead of “b’iled” shirts, never without six-shooter on hip, and indulging in profanity by the wholesale.

A better acquaintance with old Jack showed that, like the chestnut, his roughest part was on the outside. Courage, tenderness, truth, and other manly attributes peered out from under roughness of garb and speech. He was one of Gray’s “gems of purest ray serene,” born in “the dark, unfathomed caves” of frontier isolation.

Jack Long had not always been “Jack” Long. Once, way back in the early fifties, he and his “podners” had struck it rich on some “placer” diggings which they had preëmpted on the Yuba, and in less than no time my friend was heralded to the mountain communities as “Jedge” Long. This title had never been sought, and, in justice to the recipient, it should be made known that he discarded it at once, and would none of it. The title “Jedge” on the frontier does not always imply respect, and Jack would tolerate nothing ambiguous.

He was bound to be a gentleman or nothing. Before the week was half over he was arrayed, not exactly like Solomon, but much more conspicuously, in the whitest of “bailed” shirts, in the bosom of which glistened the most brilliant diamond cluster pin that money could procure from Sacramento. On the warty red fingers of his right hand sparkled its mate, and pendent from his waist a liberal handful of the old-fashioned seals and keys of the time attracted attention to the ponderous gold chain encircling his neck, and securing the biggest specimen of a watch known to fact or fiction since the days of Captain Cuttle.

Carelessly strolling up to the bar of the “Quartz Rock,” the “Hanging Wall,” or the “Golden West,” he would say, in the cheeriest way:

“Gents, what’ll yer all hev? It’s mine this time, barkeep.” And, spurning the change obsequiously tendered by the officiating genius of the gilded slaughter-house of morality, Jack would push back the twenty-dollar gold piece with which he usually began his evenings with “the boys,” and ask, in a tone of injured pride: “Is there any use in insultin’ a man when he wants to treat his friends?” And barkeeper and all in the den would voice the sentiment that a “gent” who was as liberal with his double eagles as Colonel Long was a gent indeed, and a man anybody could afford to tie to.

It was the local paper which gave Jack his military title, and alluded to the growing demand that the colonel should accept the nomination for Congress. And to Congress he would have gone, too, had not fickle Fortune turned her back upon her whilom favorite.

Jack had the bad luck to fall in love and to be married—not for the first time, as he had had previous experience in the same direction, his first wife being the youngest daughter of the great Indian chief “Cut-Mouth John,” of the Rogue River tribe, who ran away from Jack and took to the mountains when her people went on the war-path. The then wife was a white woman from Missouri, and, from all I can learn, a very good mate for Jack, excepting that prosperity turned her head and made her very extravagant. So long as Jack’s mine was panning out freely Jack didn’t mind much what she spent, but when it petered, and economy became necessary, dissensions soon arose between them, and it was agreed that they were not compatible.

“If you don’t like me,” said Mrs. Long one day, “give me a divorce and one-half of what you have, and I’ll leave you.”

“’Nuff sed,” was Jack’s reply, “’n’ here goes.”

The sum total in the Long exchequer was not quite $200. Of this, Jack laid to one side a double eagle, for a purpose soon to be explained. The remainder was divided into two even piles, one of which was handed over to his spouse. The doors of the wardrobe stood open, disclosing all of Jack’s regal raiment. He seized a pair of trousers, tore them leg from leg, and then served in much the same way every coat, waistcoat, or undergarment he owned. One pile of remnants was assigned to the stupefied woman, who ten minutes previously had been demanding a separation.

Before another ten had passed her own choicest treasures had shared the same fate, and her ex-liege lord was devoting his attention to breaking the cooking stove, with its superstructure of pots and pans and kettles, into two little hillocks of battered fragments; and no sooner through with that than at work sawing the tables and chairs in half and knocking the solitary mirror into smithereens.

“Thar yer are,” said Jack. “Ye ’v’ got half th’ money, ’n’ yer kin now tek yer pick o’ what’s left.”

The stage had come along on its way down to Sacramento, and Jack hailed the driver. “Mrs. Long’s goin’ down th’ road a bit ter see some o’ her kin, ’n’ ter get a breath o’ fresh air. Tek her ez fur ez this’ll pay fur, ’n’ then she’ll tell whar else she wants ter go.”

And that was Jack Long’s divorce and the reason why he left the mining regions of California and wandered far and near, beginning the battle of life anew as packer and prospector, and drifting down into the drainage of the Gila and into the “Shoo Fly” restaurant, where we have just met him.

There shall be many other opportunities of meeting and conversing with old Jack before the campaigning against the Apaches is half through, so we need not urge him to remain now that he has finished his meal and is ready to sally forth. We return heartily the very cheery greeting tendered by the gentleman who enters the dining-room in his place. It is ex-Marshal Duffield, a very peculiar sort of a man, who stands credited in public opinion with having killed thirteen persons. How much of this is truth and how much is pure gossip, as meaningless as the chatter of the “pechotas” which gather along the walls of the corral every evening the moment the grain of the horses is dealt out to them, I cannot say; but if the reader desire to learn of a unique character in our frontier history he will kindly permit me to tell something of the only man in the Territory of Arizona, and I may say of New Mexico and western Texas as well, who dared wear a plug hat. There was nothing so obnoxious in the sight of people living along the border as the black silk tile. The ordinary man assuming such an addition to his attire would have done so at the risk of his life, but Duffield was no ordinary individual. He wore clothes to suit himself, and woe to the man who might fancy otherwise.

Who Duffield was before coming out to Arizona I never could learn to my own satisfaction. Indeed, I do not remember ever having any but the most languid interest in that part of his career, because he kept us so fully occupied in keeping track of his escapades in Arizona that there was very little time left for investigations into his earlier movements. Yet I do recall the whispered story that he had been one of President Lincoln’s discoveries, and that the reason for his appointment lay in the courage Duffield had displayed in the New York riots during the war. It seems—and I tell the tale with many misgivings, as my memory does not retain all the circumstances—that Duffield was passing along one of the streets in which the rioters were having things their own way, and there he saw a poor devil of a colored man fleeing from some drunken pursuers, who were bent on hanging him to the nearest lamp-post. Duffield allowed the black man to pass him, and then, as the mob approached on a hot scent, he levelled his pistol—his constant companion—and blew out the brains of the one in advance, and, as the story goes, hit two others, as fast as he could draw bead on them, for I must take care to let my readers know that my friend was one of the crack shots of America, and was wont while he lived in Tucson to drive a ten-penny nail into an adobe wall every day before he would go into the house to eat his evening meal. At the present moment he was living at the “Shoo Fly,” and was one of the most highly respected members of the mess that gathered there. He stood not less than six feet three in his stockings, was extremely broad-shouldered, powerful, muscular, and finely knit; dark complexion, black hair, eyes keen as briars and black as jet, fists as big as any two fists to be seen in the course of a day; disputatious, somewhat quarrelsome, but not without very amiable qualities. His bravery, at least, was never called in question. He was no longer United States marshal, but was holding the position of Mail Inspector, and the manner in which he discharged his delicate and dangerous duties was always commendable and very often amusing.

“You see, it ’s jest like this,” he once remarked to the postmaster of one of the smallest stations in his jurisdiction, and in speaking the inspector’s voice did not show the slightest sign of anger or excitement—“you see, the postmaster-general is growling at me because there is so much thieving going on along this line, so that I’m gittin’ kind o’ tired ’n’ must git th’ whole bizz off mee mind; ’n’ ez I’ve looked into the whole thing and feel satisfied that you’re the thief, I think you’d better be pilin’ out o’ here without any more nonsense.”

The postmaster was gone inside of twelve hours, and there was no more stealing on that line while Duffield held his position. Either the rest of the twelve dollars per annum postmasters were an extremely honest set, or else they were scared by the mere presence of Duffield. He used to be very fond of showing his powerful muscle, and would often seize one of the heavy oak chairs in the “Congress Hall” bar-room in one hand, and lift it out at arm’s length; or take some of the people who stood near him and lift them up, catching hold of the feet only.

How well I remember the excitement which arose in Tucson the day that “Waco Bill” arrived in town with a wagon train on its way to Los Angeles. Mr. “Waco Bill” was a “tough” in the truest sense of the term, and being from half to three-quarters full of the worst liquor to be found in Tucson—and I hope I am violating no confidence when I say that some of the vilest coffin varnish on the mundane sphere was to be found there by those who tried diligently—was anxious to meet and subdue this Duffield, of whom such exaggerated praise was sounding in his ears.

“Whar’s Duffer?” he cried, or hiccoughed, as he approached the little group of which Duffield was the central figure. “I want Duffer (hic); he ’s my meat. Whoop!”

The words had hardly left his mouth before something shot out from Duffield’s right shoulder. It was that awful fist, which could, upon emergency, have felled an ox, and down went our Texan sprawling upon the ground. No sooner had he touched Mother Earth than, true to his Texan instincts, his hand sought his revolver, and partly drew it out of holster. Duffield retained his preternatural calmness, and did not raise his voice above a whisper the whole time that his drunken opponent was hurling all kinds of anathemas at him; but now he saw that something must be done. In Arizona it was not customary to pull a pistol upon a man; that was regarded as an act both unchristian-like and wasteful of time—Arizonanas nearly always shot out of the pocket without drawing their weapons at all, and into Mr. “Waco Bill’s” groin went the sure bullet of the man who, local wits used to say, wore crape upon his hat in memory of his departed virtues.

The bullet struck, and Duffield bent over with a most Chesterfieldian bow and wave of the hand: “My name’s Duffield, sir,” he said, “and them ’ere ’s mee visitin’ card.”

If there was one man in the world who despised another it was Chief-Justice John Titus in his scorn for the ex-marshal, which found open expression on every occasion. Titus was a gentleman of the old school, educated in the City of Brotherly Love, and anxious to put down the least semblance of lawlessness and disorder; yet here was an officer of the Government whose quarrels were notorious and of every-day occurrence.

Persuasion, kindly remonstrance, earnest warning were alike ineffectual, and in time the relations between the two men became of the most formal, not to say rancorous, character. Judge Titus at last made up his mind that the very first excuse for so doing he would have Duffield hauled up for carrying deadly weapons, and an occasion arose much sooner than he imagined.

There was a “baile” given that same week, and Duffield was present with many others. People usually went on a peace footing to these assemblies—that is to say, all the heavy armament was left at home, and nothing taken along but a few Derringers, which would come handy in case of accident.

There were some five or six of us—all friends of Duffield—sitting in a little back room away from the long saloon in which the dance was going on, and we had Duffield in such good humor that he consented to produce some if not all of the weapons with which he was loaded. He drew them from the arm-holes of his waistcoat, from his boot-legs, from his hip-pockets, from the back of his neck, and there they all were—eleven lethal weapons, mostly small Derringers, with one knife. Comment was useless; for my own part, I did not feel called upon to criticise my friend’s eccentricities or amiable weaknesses, whatever they might be, so I kept my mouth shut, and the others followed my example. I suppose that on a war-footing nothing less than a couple of Gatling guns would have served to round out the armament to be brought into play.

Whether it was a true alarm or a false one I couldn’t tell, but the next day Judge Titus imagined that a movement of Duffield’s hand was intended to bring to bear upon himself a portion of the Duffield ordnance, and he had the old man arrested and brought before him on the charge of carrying concealed deadly weapons.

The court-room was packed with a very orderly crowd, listening attentively to a long exordium from the lips of the judge upon the enormity and the uselessness of carrying concealed deadly weapons. The judge forgot that men would carry arms so long as danger real or imaginary encompassed them, and that the opinions prevailing upon that subject in older communities could not be expected to obtain in the wilder regions.

In Arizona, the reader should know, all the officers of the law were Americans. In New Mexico, on the contrary, they were almost without exception Mexicans, and the legal practice was entirely different from our own, as were the usages and customs of various kinds. For example, one could go before one of those Rio Grande alcaldes in Socorro, San Antonio, or Sabinal, and wear just what clothes he pleased, or not wear any if he didn’t please; it would be all right. He might wear a hat, or go in his shirt sleeves, or go barefoot, or roll himself a cigarrito, and it would be all right. But let him dare enter with spurs, and the ushers would throw him out, and it was a matter of great good luck if he did not find himself in the calaboose to boot, for contempt of court.

“Call the first witness; call Charles O. Brown.”

Mr. Charles O. Brown, under oath, stated his name, residence, and occupation, and was then directed to show to the judge and jury how the prisoner—Duffield—had drawn his revolver the day previous.

“Well, jedge, the way he drawed her was jest this.” And suiting the action to the word, Mr. Charles O. Brown, the main witness for the prosecution, drew a six-shooter, fully cocked, from the holster on his hip. There was a ripple of laughter in the courtroom, as every one saw at once the absurdity of trying to hold one man responsible for the misdemeanor of which a whole community was guilty, and in a few minutes the matter was nolle prossed.

I will end up the career of the marshal in this chapter, as we shall have no further cause to introduce him in these pages. His courage was soon put to the severest sort of a test when a party of desperadoes from Sonora, who had been plundering in their own country until driven across the line, began their operations in Arizona. At the dead of night they entered Duffield’s house, and made a most desperate assault upon him while asleep in his bed. By some sort of luck the blow aimed with a hatchet failed to hit him on head or neck—probably his assailants were too drunk to see what they were, doing—and chopped out a frightful gash in the shoulder, which would have killed the general run of men. Duffield, as has been shown, was a giant in strength, and awakened by the pain, and at once realizing what had happened, he sprang from his couch and grappled with the nearest of the gang of burglars, choked him, and proceeded to use him as a weapon with which to sweep out of the premises the rest of the party, who, seeing that the household had been alarmed, made good their escape.

Duffield was too much exhausted from loss of blood to retain his hold upon the rascal whom he had first seized, so that Justice did not succeed in laying her hands upon any of the band. When Duffield recovered sufficiently to be able to reappear on the streets, he did not seem to be the same man. He no longer took pleasure in rows, but acted like one who had had enough of battles, and was willing to live at peace with his fellow-men. Unfortunately, if one acquire the reputation of being “a bad man” on the frontier, it will stick to him for a generation after he has sown his wild oats, and is trying to bring about a rotation of crops.

Duffield was killed at Tombstone ten years since, not far from the Contention Mine, by a young man named Holmes, who had taken up a claim in which Duffield asserted an interest. The moment he saw Duffield approaching he levelled a shot-gun upon him, and warned him not to move a foot, and upon Duffield’s still advancing a few paces he filled him full of buckshot, and the coroner’s jury, without leaving their seats, returned a verdict of justifiable homicide, because the old, old Duffield, who was “on the shoot,” was still remembered, and the new man, who had turned over a new leaf and was trying to lead a new life, was still a stranger in the land.

Peace to his ashes!

There were military as well as non-military men in Tucson, and although the following incident did not occur under my personal observation, and was one of those stories that “leak out,” I tell it as filling in a gap in the description of life as it was in Arizona twenty and twenty-five years ago. All the persons concerned were boarders at the “Shoo Fly,” and all are now dead, or out of service years and years ago.

The first was the old field officer whom, for want of a better name, every one called “Old Uncle Billy N——.” He had met with a grievous misfortune, and lost one of his eyes, but bore his trouble with stoicism and without complaint. During a brief visit to Boston, he had arranged with an oculist and optician to have made for him three glass eyes. “But I don’t clearly understand what you want with so many,” said the Boston man.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” replied the son of Mars. “You see, I want one for use when I’m sober, one when I’m drunk, and one when I’m p—— d—— drunk.”

The glass eyes were soon ready to meet the varying conditions of the colonel’s life, and gave the old man the liveliest satisfaction. Not long after his return to the bracing climate of Tucson he made the round of the gaming-tables at the Feast of Saint Augustine, which was then in full blast, and happened to “copper” the ace, when he should have bet “straight,” and bet on the queen when that fickle lady was refusing the smile of her countenance to all her admirers. It was a gloomy day for the colonel when he awaked to find himself almost without a dollar, and no paymaster to be expected from San Francisco for a couple of months. A brilliant thought struck him; he would economize by sending back to Boston two of his stock of glass eyes, which he did not really need, as the “sober” and “tolerably drunk” ones had never been used, and ought to fetch something of a price at second-hand.

The Boston dealer, however, curtly refused to negotiate a sale, saying that he did not do business in that way, and, as if to add insult to injury, enclosed the two eyes in a loose sheet of paper, which was inscribed with a pathetic story about “The Drunkard Saved.” It took at least a dozen rounds of drinks before the colonel could drown, his wrath, and satisfy the inquiries of condoling friends who had learned of the brutal treatment to which he had been subjected.

A great friend of the colonel’s was Al. Garrett, who in stature was his elder’s antithesis, being as short and wiry as the colonel was large and heavy. Garrett was an extremely good-hearted youngster, and one of the best horsemen in the whole army. His admirers used to claim that he could ride anything with four legs to it, from a tarantula to a megatherium. Semig, the third of the trio, was a Viennese, a very cultivated man, a graduate in medicine, an excellent musician, a graceful dancer, well versed in modern languages, and well educated in every respect. He was the post surgeon at Camp Crittenden, sixty miles to the south of Tucson, but was temporarily at the latter place.

He and Garrett and Uncle Billy were making the best of their way home from supper at the “Shoo Fly” late one evening, and had started to cut across lots after passing the “Plaza.”

There were no fences, no covers—nothing at all to prevent pedestrians from falling into some one of the innumerable abandoned wells which were to be met with in every block, and it need surprise no one to be told that in the heat of argument about some trivial matter the worthy medical officer, who was walking in the middle, fell down plump some fifteen or twenty feet, landing in a more or less bruised condition upon a pile of adobes and pieces of rock at the bottom.

Garrett and his elderly companion lurched against each other and continued the discussion, oblivious of the withdrawal of their companion, who from his station at the bottom of the pit, like another Joseph, was bawling for his heartless brothers to return and take him out. After his voice failed he bethought him of his revolver, which he drew from hip, and with which he blazed away, attracting the attention of a party of Mexicans returning from a dance, who too hastily concluded that Semig was a “Gringo” spoiling for a fight, whereupon they gave him their best services in rolling down upon him great pieces of adobe, which imparted renewed vigor to Semig’s vocalization and finally awakened the Mexicans to a suspicion of the true state of the case.

The poor doctor never heard the last of his mishap, and very likely was glad to receive the order which transferred him to the Modoc War, wherein he received the wounds of which he afterward died. He showed wonderful coolness in the Lava Beds, and even after the Indians had wounded him in the shoulder and he had been ordered off the field, he refused to leave the wounded under fire until a second shot broke his leg and knocked him senseless.

Associated with Semig in my recollection is the name of young Sherwood, a First Lieutenant in the Twenty-first Infantry, who met his death in the same campaign. He was a man of the best impulses, bright, brave, and generous, and a general favorite.

This rather undersized gentleman coming down the street is a man with a history—perhaps it might be perfectly correct to say with two or three histories. He is Don Estevan Ochoa, one of the most enterprising merchants, as he is admitted to be one of the coolest and bravest men, in all the southwestern country. He has a handsome face, a keen black eye, a quick, business-like air, with very polished and courteous manners.

During the war the Southern leaders thought they would establish a chain of posts across the continent from Texas to California, and one of their first movements was to send a brigade of Texans to occupy Tucson. The commanding general—Turner by name—sent for Don Estevan and told him that he had been informed that he was an outspoken sympathizer with the cause of the Union, but he hoped that Ochoa would see that the Union was a thing of the past, and reconcile himself to the new state of affairs, and take the oath to the Confederacy, and thus relieve the new commander from the disagreeable responsibility of confiscating his property and setting him adrift outside his lines.

Don Estevan never hesitated a moment. He was not that kind of a man. His reply was perfectly courteous, as I am told all the talk on the part of the Confederate officer had been. Ochoa owed all he had in the world to the Government of the United States, and it would be impossible for him to take an oath of fidelity to any hostile power or party. When would General Turner wish him to leave?

He was allowed to select one of his many horses, and to take a pair of saddle-bags filled with such clothing and food as he could get together on short notice, and then, with a rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition, was led outside the lines and started for the Rio Grande. How he ever made his way across those two hundred and fifty miles of desert and mountains which intervened between the town of Tucson and the Union outposts nearer to the Rio Grande, I do not know—nobody knows. The country was infested by the Apaches, and no one of those upon whom he turned his back expected to hear of his getting through alive. But he did succeed, and here he is, a proof of devotion to the cause of the nation for which it would be hard to find a parallel. When the Union troops reoccupied Tucson Don Estevan resumed business and was soon wealthy again, in spite of the tribute levied by the raiding Apaches, who once ran off every head of draught oxen the firm of Tully, Ochoa & De Long possessed, and never stopped until they had crossed the Rio Salado, or Salt River, where they killed and “jerked” the meat on the slope of that high mesa which to this day bears the name of “Jerked Beef Butte.”

Another important factor in the formative period of Arizona’s growth is this figure walking briskly by, clad in the cassock of an ecclesiastic. It is Bishop Salpointe, a man of learning, great administrative capacity, and devoted to the interests of his people. He preaches little, but practises much. In many ways unknown to his flock he is busy with plans for their spiritual and worldly advancement, and the work he accomplishes in establishing schools, both in Tucson and in the Papago village of San Xavier, is something which should not soon be forgotten by the people benefited. He is very poor. All that one can see in his house is a crucifix and a volume of precious manuscript notes upon the Apaches and Papagoes. He seems to be always cheerful. His poverty he freely shares with his flock, and I have often thought that if he ever had any wealth he would share that too.

This one whom we meet upon the street as we leave to visit one of the gambling saloons is Pete Kitchen. We shall be in luck if he invite us to visit him at his “ranch,” which has all the airs of a feudal castle in the days of chivalry. Peter Kitchen has probably had more contests with Indians than any other settler in America. He comes from the same stock which sent out from the lovely vales and swales in the Tennessee Mountains the contingent of riflemen who were to cut such a conspicuous figure at the battle of New Orleans, and Peter finds just as steady employment for his trusty rifle as ever was essential in the Delta.

Approaching Pete Kitchen’s ranch, one finds himself in a fertile valley, with a small hillock near one extremity. Upon the summit of this has been built the house from which no effort of the Apaches has ever succeeded in driving our friend. There is a sentinel posted on the roof, there is another out in the “cienaga” with the stock, and the men ploughing in the bottom are obliged to carry rifles, cocked and loaded, swung to the plough handle. Every man and boy is armed with one or two revolvers on hip. There are revolvers and rifles and shotguns along the walls and in every corner. Everything speaks of a land of warfare and bloodshed. The title of “Dark and Bloody Ground” never fairly belonged to Kentucky. Kentucky never was anything except a Sunday-school convention in comparison with Arizona, every mile of whose surface could tell its tale of horror were the stones and gravel, the sage-brush and mescal, the mesquite and the yucca, only endowed with speech for one brief hour.

Within the hospitable walls of the Kitchen home the traveller was made to feel perfectly at ease. If food were not already on the fire, some of the women set about the preparation of the savory and spicy stews for which the Mexicans are deservedly famous, and others kneaded the dough and patted into shape the paper-like tortillas with which to eat the juicy frijoles or dip up the tempting chile colorado. There were women carding, spinning, sewing—doing the thousand and one duties of domestic life in a great ranch, which had its own blacksmith, saddler, and wagonmaker, and all other officials needed to keep the machinery running smoothly.

Between Pete Kitchen and the Apaches a ceaseless war was waged, with the advantages not all on the side of Kitchen. His employees were killed and wounded, his stock driven away, his pigs filled with arrows, making the suffering quadrupeds look like perambulating pin-cushions—everything that could be thought of to drive him away; but there he stayed, unconquered and unconquerable.

Men like Estevan Ochoa and Pete Kitchen merit a volume by themselves. Arizona and New Mexico were full of such people, not all as determined and resolute as Pete; not all, nor nearly all, so patriotic and self-denying as Don Estevan, but all with histories full of romance and excitement. Few of them yet remain, and their deeds of heroism will soon be forgotten, or, worse luck yet, some of the people who never dreamed of going down there until they could do so in a Pullman car will be setting themselves up as heroes, and having their puny biographies written for the benefit of the coming generations.

Strangest recollection of all that I have of those persons is the quietness of their manner and the low tone in which they usually spoke to their neighbors. They were quiet in dress, in speech, and in conduct—a marked difference from the more thoroughly dramatized border characters of later days.