of the soldiers used to come over and look on at the dances. The Indians, however, broke away to the hills again, and this was the way it came about: There was a Tonto woman at the post who had been captured some years previous, and married to a packer by the name of Archie McIntosh. She told the Apaches that the soldiers had sent for the Pimas and Maricopas to come to the fort and kill off the Apaches in the same manner it had been done at Fort Grant on the San Pedro River some years previous. That afternoon the chiefs got together and agreed to leave the camp and go back to the hills. The old people and the children were to go first before the sun went down, leaving only the warriors and young men, who were to keep singing and beating the drums so that the soldiers would not notice that anybody had left the camp or intended to leave, and, in the evening, Bar-gin-gah, with about six young men, would creep up around the stables after dark, take what horses they could get, and light out with them to the hills. By that time nearly all the rest of the Indians would be near the hills. About midnight Bar-gin-gah, with his young men, went to the stables, creeping on their hands and knees, watching the soldier who was walking around the stable. They noticed that there was only one soldier on guard, and when he turned to go the other way, they crept up and untied the horses in the stables, and each one came out with a horse and got away unnoticed by the soldiers until they crossed the river, when the horses made so much noise that they alarmed the camp and the sentinel fired some shots at them, which, however, did no harm. The men who had been left in the camp singing

and beating the drum, had already gone to the hills. The young men drove the horses over the hills and mountains, and next morning when they were near the top of a mountain, they looked back and saw soldiers coming across the valley. Many more Indians joined them and it was decided to kill the horses, which was done, and the meat was held up to the view of the soldiers, and they were invited by signs to come and have some of it. They did not do this, however, but stayed in the foothills and fired a few shots, some of which struck the dead horses, but none of the Indians were struck. We did not mind the shooting, being more interested in getting our shares of the horse meat. So the soldiers went back to Fort McDowell, nobody was hurt, and we Indians got our fill of horse meat.

"In 1867 some New Mexican volunteers, under Lieutenant Abeyta, had a fight at a point of rocks about twenty-five miles north of Prescott with some of the Apaches. The Indians whipped the soldiers, and drove them out over the rocks. A white man, named Willard Rice, who was a guide and scout for the soldiers, and several soldiers were killed and wounded. It was never known how many were killed and wounded, but the Indians whipped the soldiers and drove away the stock into the hills towards Bill Williams' Mountain. The story of these fights, when told by the white man, all have the same beginning, which is that the Indians steal stock, as, at Skull Valley some parties of Indians stole some stock from some freighters who were on their way to Fort Whipple, and a few days afterwards a great many more Indians came to the very spot where the animals had been stolen. The soldiers who

were out scouting for the parties who took away the stock attacked the astonished Indians without any warning. The Indians were unarmed, as they were on their way to the Post to make a treaty and had a letter to show the soldiers and to the whites, but they were shot down without mercy.

"The raids of the Indians against the whites were all for the purpose of securing vengeance. No history of Arizona can truthfully state that the Apaches have committed the crimes which have been charged to them. All that they have done was to steal stock, which they did to secure vengeance for the wrong done them.

"My mother was killed by the soldiers. We had been camping at the top of the Superstition Mountains, gathering the cactus fruit, and were returning to our home. My father said that he would go ahead of us to be on the lookout in case the enemy should ambush us. The country we were travelling over had been raided many times by the soldiers and the Pima and Maricopa Indians, and we were afraid of being ambushed. We were deathly afraid of the Pimas, Maricopas and Papagoes of the Gila Valley. I remember that day as well as if it happened a few years ago, and I was then only a very small lad. We came down from a high mountain trail to a creek. Each side of the creek was covered with cactus, mesquite, and every other kind of a tree, and the cactus and mesquite trees were loaded to the full of their bearing. My mother saw the fruits and the mesquite beans so she wanted us to stop, and left us children, (I was the oldest of three, there being a baby sister and a little brother who could just walk, but not very much). My mother hur

ried off, taking her large basket which she carried on her back. My aunt and uncle (who had five children with them) were getting ready to follow my mother's trail, she having been gone about a half hour, when all at once we heard someone give a loud yell, and in a few minutes there were some gun shots, and we heard my poor mother's death cry. My aunt and uncle told me to take the baby, and lead the little boy, and hurry over to a thick brushy canyon, and my grandmother followed me, but after going a few yards I looked back and could not see my grandmother any more, but I kept on my way, carrying the baby on my back and keeping hold of my little brother by the arm. I was walking up a thick brushy gulch, and so was not seen by the soldiers or any of our enemies who might be following me. I was walking on the side of a hill when I heard my uncle calling me, and he came to assist me with the children. They had already reached the top of the mountain and when I reached them I could hear my father fighting the soldiers. He only had a bow and arrows to fight the soldiers with, and they had guns. My father was always on the lookout for dangers when we were on our journeys, and the reason that he could not see the ambush this time was that the soldiers travelled in a deep narrow canyon, in between two ranges of rocky hills. My father was looking farther away in the direction of the roads, and could not see a soul, and was sure there was no danger. He came back over the hill, saw us in the valley, and rested for the noon. After the soldiers had killed my mother, they saw my father on the hills, so they chased after him, but he had climbed a high rocky

mountain and rolled rocks down on them, so they did not dare climb up the hills. He was shooting down on them with his bow and arrows and rolling rocks down on them and in this way he kept them from climbing the mountain. The soldiers had not seen us, for they took after my father instead of charging up the canyon. If they had not done this they would have gotten the rest of us. After the soldiers had marched away, my father joined us, and said that the soldiers must have killed my mother because he saw her running along on the side of the hill, and the soldiers were shooting at her, and then he could not see her any more. We all came down from the mountain then and camped in a cave, and early the next morning my father and uncle went back to try and find the body of my mother. They found her dead in a cave, full of bullet holes.

"My grandfather and grandmother were not able to run for their lives, but they hid under some thick grass all day, and when night came they came out of their hiding place and it just happened that they saw our tracks and they followed us until they overtook us.

"I cannot recollect much of what took place or just what places we went to after my mother was killed. This must have been in the year 1870. It was such actions as this on the part of the white people which led the Indians to seek vengeance on all the whites and their Indian allies, who they persuaded to go with them and kill off all the other Indians they could find. My father and uncle had never killed a soul in their lives before this happened, and had never even seen a white man, but this outrage sent them out to take vengeance. Before this we were always