Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1909 — The Round-Up [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Round-Up

SYNOPSIS. Chapter I— --Returning with gold from the mines to an Arizona ranch to claim Echo Allen, his promised bride, Dick Lane Is attacked by Apaches led by Buck McKee, a renegade. After spending six months In a hospital Lane writes to his fripnd Jack Payson, owner of the Sweetwater ranch, to tell Echo he is coming home. He tells Payson he has $3,000 to pay a mortgage placed by Jack on his ranch to help him. ll—Colonel Jim Allen, owner of the Bar One ranch, Is father of Echo and father by adoption of Polly Hope, Dick and Bud Lane. Polly and Bud are sweethearts. In Dick’s absence Echo falls in love with Jack, realizing that her love for Dick was merely friendship. Dick is believed to be dead, owing to the return of McKee with a lying story. Bud “chums” with McKee despite the warnings of Slim Hoover, the fat and popular sheriff. Echo and Jack become engaged. 111. Echo declares to Jack after the latter suppresses Dick's letter, fearing to lose her, that she will be true to her promise to Dick if he returns. Bud quarrels with Jack about Echo, the boy championing his absent brother’s cause. IV—Aided by Bud, McKee murders Terrill, the station agent, stealing from him $3,000 of county money. McKee suggests to Bud that Dick may still be living. V—The boys gather at the Allen ranch for the wedding of Echo and Jack. VI and Vll—McKee plans to to throw suspicion of Terrill’s murder on Jack, and he and Bud go to the Allens’ for the weddifig. Mckee raises a disturbance and Is put out. VIII — All ready for the wedding. IX — Dick turns up at the Allens’ just as his sweetheart Is married to Jack. Only Allen and Jack see him. Jack Is tempted to shoot his friend, who pays the $3,000 to him and returns to the desert. X —The cowpunchers send for a piano as a surprise for • Echo, now married to Jack. XI Jack Jceeps his business affairs secret from his wife, not daring to tell her where he got the $3,000 to pay the mortgage. Polly flirts with Slim, although she loves bud The boys give the piano to Echo. Buck McKee comes to Payson’s at the head of his followers, the Lazy K outfit, to accuse Payson of killing Terrill. Xll—Buck accuses Jack, and the young man refuses to clear himself by telling where he got the money. Slim puts McKee and his men off the Payson place. Jack confesses to his wife his deception to her regarding Dick, and she sends him to the desert to find Dick and bring him hack to hear from her own lips that she believed him dead when she promised to marry Jack. Forgetting he is under suspicion of killing Terrill, Jack goes. Echo tries to call him back, but is prevented by Bud. Slim, as sheriff, pursues Jack.

CHAPTER XIII.

FORTH to the land of dead things, through cities that are forgotten, fared Dick Lane. Tricked by his friend, with the woman he loved lost to him, he wandered onward. Automatically he took up again his quest for buried treasure. That which in the flush of youthful enthusiasm and roseate prospects of life and love had seized him as a passion was now a settled habit, and fortunately so, for It kept 'him from going mad. lie had no thought of gain, only the achievement of a fixed purpose, a monomania. With this impulse was conjoined a more volitional motive—he wished to revenge himself upon the Apaches and chiefly upon the renegade McKee, Whom he supposed still to be with them. Somehow he blamed him rather than Jack Payson as being the chief cause of his miseries. “If he had not stolen the buried gold I would have returned in time.” he muttered. “He Is at the bottom of all this. As I walked away from Jack in the garden I felt as if It was McKee that was following me with his black, snaky eyes.” Accordingly Dick directed his way to a region reputed to be both rich In burled treasure and infested by hostile Indians. He wandend westward to Tularosa, then down to Fort Grant and toward the lava beds of southwestern Arizona. In all that arid land there was nothing so withered as his soul. Jack, well mounted, with a pack mule carrying supplies, had picked up Dick’s trail after it left Tularosa from a scout out of Fort Grant. Slim Hoover headed for Fort Grant in his search for Jack. Although the ranchman had only a brief start of him, Slim lost the track at the river ford. Knowing Dick had gone into the desert. Jack headed eastward, while Slim, supposing that Jack was breaking for the border to escape into a foreign country, turned southward. From the scout who had met Jack and Dick the sheriff learned that the two men were headed for the lava beds, which were occupied by hostile Apaches. Detachments of the Third cavalry were stationed at the fort, with Colonel Hardie in command of the famous F troop, a band of Indian fighters never equaled. * In turn they chased Cochise, Victoria and Geronimo with their Apache warriors up and down and across the Bio Granda Hard pressed, each chieftain in turn would flee with his band first to the lava beds and thed across the border into Mexico, where the

A Romance of Arizona Novelized From Edmund Day's Melodrama By JOHN MURRAY and MILLS MILLER Copyright. 1008. by C. W. DUUufbtm Co. ' -X. . ■ ■- - .1

tjnlted States soldiers could not follow. Hardie fooled Victoria, however. Texas rangers had met the Apache chief in an engagement on the banks of the Rio Grande. Only eight Americans returned from the encounter. Hardie took up his pursuit and followed Victoria across the river. The Indians had relaxed their vigilance, not expecting pursuit and despising the Mexk-au rprales. Troop F caught them off guard in the mountains. The fight was one to extermination. Victoria and his entire band were slain. This was the troop which was awaiting orders to go after the Apaches. Colonel Hardie told Slim that the Indians were bound to head for the lava beds. If the men for whom he was looking were in the desert the troop would find them more quickly than Slim and his posse. Sliin waited at Fort Grant for orders, writing back to Sagebrush telling him of his plans. Fort Grant followed the usual plan of all frontier posts. A row of officers' houses faced the parade grounds. Directly opposite were the cavalry barracks fort. On one side of the quadrangle were the stables, and the fourth line consisted of the quartermaster's buildings and the post trader's store Small ranchmen had gathered near the fort for protection and because of the desire of the white man for company. In days of peace garrison life was monotonous. But the Apaches needed constant watching. As a soldier the Apache was cruel and cowardly. He fought dismounted, never making an attack unless at.his own advantage. As infantryman he was unequaled. Veteran army officers adopted the Apache tactics and installed in the army the plan of mounted Infantry, soldiers who move on horseback, but fight on foot, detailing one man of every four to guard the horses. Mounted on wiry ponies inured to hardships, to picking up a living on the scanty herbage of the plains, riding without saddles and carrying no equipment, the Indians had little trouble in avoiding the soldiers. Leaving the reservation, the Apaches would commit some outrage and then, swinging on the arc of a great circle, would be back to camp and settled long before the soldiers could overtake them. Hampered by orders from the war department, which in turn was molested by the sentimental friends of the Indians, the soldiers never succeeded in taming the Apache until Crook cut off communications and thrashed them so thoroughly in these same lava beds that they never recovered. In Slim’s aosence Buck McKee and his gang had taken possession of Pinal county. Rustlers and bad men were coming in from Texas and the strip. Slim’s election for another term was by no means certain. He did not know this, but if he had it would not have made any difference to him. He was after Jack and at any cost would bring him back to face trial. The rogues of Pinal county seized upon the flight of Jack as a good excuse to down Slim. The sheriff was more eager to find Jack and learn from him that Buck’s charge was false than to take him prisoner. He knew the accusation would not stand full investigation.

Slowly the hours passed until the order for “boots and saddles” was sounded and the troops trotted out of the fort gate. Scouts soon picked up their trail, but that was different from finding the Indians. Ofttimes the troopers would ride into a hastily abandoned camp with the ashes still warm, but never a sight of a warrior could be had. Over broad mesas, down narrow mountain trails and up canyons so deep that the sun never fully penetrated them the soldiers followed the renegades. For a day the trail wms lost. Then it was picked up by the print of a pony’s hoof beside a water hole. But always the line of flight led toward an Apache soring in the lava beds.

Slim and his posse took their commands from the officers of the pursuers. The cowpunchers gave them much assistance as scouts, knowing the country through which the Indians fled. Keeping in touch with the main command, they rode ahead to protect it from any surprise. The chief Indian scout got so far ahead at one

time in the chase that he was not seen for two days. Once, by lying flat on his belly, shading his eyes with his hands and gazing Intently at a mountain side so far ahead that the soldiers could scarcely discern it, he declared he had seen the fugitives climb the trail. The feat seemed impossible until the second morning after, when the scout pointed out to the colonel the pony tracks up the mountain side. The Apache scouts kept track of the soldiers’ movements, communicating with the main body with blanket signals and smoke columns. The sign language of the Indians of the

southwest is an interesting field of study. On the occasion of a raid like the one described the warriors who Were to participate would gather at one point and construct a mound with as many stones in it as there were warriors. Then they would scatter into small bands. When any band returned to the mound after losing a fight and the others were not there the leafier would take from the mound as many stones as he had lost warriors. Thus the other bands, on returning, could tell just how many men had fallen. In the arid regions of the west water signs are quite frequent. They usually consist of a grouping of stones, with a longer triangular stone in the center, its apex pointing in the direction -where the water is to be found. In some cases the water is so far from the trail that four or five of these sighs must be followed up before the water is found. Only the Indian and the mule can smell water. This accomplishment enabled the fleeing Apaches to take every advantage of the pursuing troopers, who must travel from spring to spring along known trails. In the long, weary chase men and horses began to fall rapidly. FlVfrt rations quickly became slow starvation fare. Hardie fed his men and horses on mesquite bean, a plant heretofore considered poisonous. For water he was forced to depend upon the cactus, draining the fluid secreted at the heart of the plant. With faces blistered by the sun and caked- With alkali, blue shirts faded to a purple tinge and trousers and accou-

terments covered with a gray, powdery dust, the soldiers rode on silently and determinedly. Hour after hour the troop flung itself across the plains and into the heart of the lava beds, each day cutting down the Apache lead. (To be Continued)

Blanket signals.

The soldiers rode on silently and determinedly.