warriors had followed the party, laying ambuscades and making attacks upon them at water holes all the winter down to their arrival at Fort McLane in February, 1863. From this camp Captain Walker decided to send nearly half of his command to the Pinos Altos under the lead of John W. Swilling, to capture Mangus if possible. Mangus used signal smokes to telegraph the movements of the party, to defeat which Swilling and his command decided to start before daylight. The day before they started the advance guard of General West of the California Column, about thirty soldiers under command of Captain Shirland, arrived in the Walker camp. Captain Walker invited them to join in the search for Mangus. The invitation was accepted, and the next morning saw a company of citizens and soldiers hurrying up the mountain to Pinos Altos. When they arrived the soldiers concealed themselves in an old hackel and behind the rocks and chaparral. A few moments later the Walker Party marched boldly across the open ground to the summit, where John W. Swilling, who was in command "uttered a warwhoop loud enough to make an Apache ashamed of himself," hearing which, Mangus, who was a short distance away, slowly advanced in the direction of Swilling's command, followed by about a dozen of his bodyguard. Swilling went out alone and met them about a hundred and fifty paces from the rest of his command where they all halted for a moment until the citizen party levelled their rifles upon them. Jack Swilling laid his hand upon Mangus' shoulder, and in broken Spanish, which both could understand,

Un

convinced him that resistance was in vain. der the menace of levelled guns they slowly advanced to the Walker party. Swilling told Mangus that his bodyguard was not wanted, and Mangus halted them and in Spanish told them: "Tell my people to look for me when they see me.' Knowing that Mangus had a large force of warriors in this vicinity, they hurried away with the prisoner. Passing back over the summit of the ridge, the soldiers came out of their concealment to the evident disgust of Mangus, who began to see into the trick to capture him. There was not a shot fired. The party arrived with their prisoner in safety at Fort McLane about three o'clock P. M., to find that General West had arrived with two companies of California Volunteers en route for the war in the States. He ordered that Mangus be brought before him, and what transpired there was not made known to Mr. Conner, but Mangus, in charge of two soldiers, stood about the camp the rest of the day, a head and shoulders above all the palefaces present, not less than six and a half feet tall and large in proportion. He had a heavy suit of long, black hair, a heavy oval face and cruel bloodshot eyes. Stolid and indifferent, he refused to notice or to speak to anyone. He wore a large sombrero of Mexican manufacture, an ordinary check shirt, and blue overalls, cut off at the knees. His only redeeming feature was his delicate aquiline nose. Night came on and the two soldiers brought Mangus to the one fire used by the Walker Party before the arrival of the soldiers, near which the old savage lay, wrapped in a blanket. It was a cold February

night. Mr. Conner says: "Our beat ran from the fire, about one hundred and fifty yards into the outer darkness. I was the citizen sentinel until midnight. About nine o'clock P. M., I discovered the soldiers were annoying the old savage while I was out in the dark, and ceased as I returned to the fire, when they appeared to be sleepy. Thenceforward I would rapidly reach the outer end of my beat, turn back slowly, and observe the soldiers, heating their bayonets in the fire and touching them to the old savage's feet and legs. They kept up this annoyance until midnight, and upon my last return to the firelight Mangus raised upon his elbow angrily protesting that he was no child to be played with, whereupon each soldier fired upon him, once with muskets, and twice apiece with sixshooters, after which George Lount took my place on guard, and I went into my blankets. The following morning the body of Mangus occupied exactly the same position it did during the night. I took his trinkets from under his huge head and gave them to a Lieutenant during the day. A little soldier calling himself John T. Wright, scalped Mangus with an Arkansas toothpick, borrowed from Bill Lallier, the soldiers' cook, for the purpose. A few nights later the army surgeon, Dr. Sturgeon, exhumed the body, and obtained the huge skull to send East. Now you have the real facts to which I can subscribe under oath."

Commenting upon the above Mr. Conner says: "But what about General West's report to the War Department, a copy of which I have in my scrapbook, taken from the Washington Republican and the Cincinnati Enquirer, which says that

'Mangus was taken redhanded in a fight with the troops under Capt. Shirland of the California Volunteers, and delivered to him half an hour after the capture?' That he placed a guard over the savage, a sergeant and nine men, and yet Mangus rushed his guard at midnight and was shot down, etc. I don't believe General West meant to prevaricate, but took the word of those under him, who have always disgraced the history of the West, worse than the fraudulent legends of Old Mexico.

"Let me refer to other facts in this case, if it does make you blush: Taken from these same newspapers and in my scrapbook, Governor Arny takes General West to task for the killing of Mangus, saying that he was present at the killing of the old savage and writes from personal knowledge; that the military officers decided that Mangus must die, and to get an excuse, roused the old savage up by thrusting a red hot iron bar through a crack of the adobe wall into the room where Mangus was confined at Fort Buchanan, and killed him. Fort Buchanan, where the Governor locates the scene at which he was present, is something near three hundred miles from Fort McLane where Mangus was killed, yet the Governor and the General had a long controversy for the benefit of history as published and preserved in my scrapbook.

"I am going to suggest that General West's false report to the War Department will be matured by time into good history, like thousands of Arizona circumstances which it will be next to impossible to detect. I am in the case like Governor Arny, only I saw the killing of

Mangus nearly three hundred miles from where the Governor personally saw the same killing.

So died the greatest chief the Apache nation had produced. His personal appearance is thus described: "He was six feet high, had a very large head with a broad forehead, a large aquiline nose, a most capacious mouth, a broad heavy chin, and a powerful and well made frame. His eyes were rather small but exceedingly brilliant, and flashed when under any excitement, although his demeanor was as imperturbable as brass." His relation by marriage to Cochise and the Navajos, gave him large influence with those tribes. He was noted for far-sightedness and diplomacy, which made him influential in council, and a recognized leader in battle. For fifty years his influence was felt over nearly all of Arizona, the northern part of Sonora, and the western portion of New Mexico. He made his raids at will, whenever and whereever he wished, and no enemy was able to cope with him. He was at all times the implacable foe of both the Mexicans and the Americans. Unlike most of the Apaches, he was deceitful and treacherous; his word was worthless; no treaty bound him, and he died as he had lived, a human tiger. He was about seventy years old when his career was treacherously ended.

Major Griner, after an investigation made in 1865 as to the cause of the Indian differences made this statement:

"In my experience I have never known a serious difficulty in the Territory between the Indians and citizens, which did not originate mainly with the latter. One of the most exciting