Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 103, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1908 — DOLL AVERTED WAR. [ARTICLE]

DOLL AVERTED WAR.

Child’. Plaything Had « Soothing Effect Upon Apache Tribe. A strange story is told of how a child's plaything once had a soothing Influence upoh a warlike Apache tribe, and was the means of avoiding a serious war. It hapened when a Mr. Bourke was In Arizona with Ge.. Crooke. The general was trying to put a band of Apache back on the reserve, but could not catch them without killing them, and that he did not want to do. One day his men captured a-little Indian girl and took her to the fort. She was quiet all day, saying not a word, but her black beads of eyes watched everything. When night came, however, she broke down and sobbed just as any white child would have done. They tried in vain to comfort her, and then Mr. Bourke had an Idea. From the adjutant’s wife he borrowed a pretty dol? that belonged to her little daughter, and when the young Apache was made to understand that it was hers to keep, her sobs ceased and she fell asleep. When morning came, the doll was still clasped In her arms. She played with it all day, and apparently all thought of ever getting back to her tribe had left her. Several days passed, and as no overtures about the return of the papoose had been made by the tribe, they sent her, with the doll still In her possession, back to her people. Mr. Bourke had no Idea of the effect his benevolent, act would have upon the Indians. When the child reached them, with the pretty doll ,ln Its chubby hands, It made a great sensation among them, and later on Its mother came back to the post with It. , She was kindly received, and hospitably treated, and through her the tribe was soon afterward persuaded to move back to the reserve.