, 1886-06-27
AN INDIAN a
J. H.. Cook, the Apache Scout and Ari-
IONA Cattle Man.

LOha Sattit phdus
MIR. j. II. Cook. the noted Indian
scout and trailer is in the city. Mr..
Cook for the last five years has been on
the borders of Arizona and New Mexico.
where be has large cattle interests. Mr..
Cook is at present the chief trailer of the
8th cavalry. He has under his leader
ship $50 Navajo scouts. and some dozen
experienced white men. In conversation
with him THE LEADER reporter gathered
some interesting and bottom facts in re-
gard to the raids of the treacherous, cruel
and cowardly Apaches.
Mr.. Cooks cattle range, on which run
some 1000 head. is located on the head
OF the San Francisco river, on the line of
New Mexico and Arizona. The ranch it
self s at the opening of one of the noun
tain gates or passes, and when the
Apaches come that way they necessarily
pass directly through the range, and fire.
quently within sight of the ranch itself.
In the outbreak of last spring the In
dams issued from the mountains by this
pass, and the first of their bloody work
was the killing of sixteen men on Cooks
range. The Indians are stealthy and
covardly beyond the comprehension of
the, white man who has no active knowl-
edge Of their characteristics. They never
draw a trigger unless their foe is entirely
at their mercy, and retaliation impossible.
Last year Mr.. Cook assisted In burying
thirty people who had fallen before the
treacherous bullet, and no one of the
thirty. had been shot at a distance greater
than fifteen steps. These villainous
bucks, for warriors they can not be
called, are all supplied with excellent field
glasses, and from the tops they
espy the approach of the freighter, the
emigrant or the local traveller. An am
buscade is at once arranged, the victim or
victims ride almost on to the muzzles of
the concealed guns and are frequently
powder burnt in receiving their death
wound.
When it comes to following them they
scatter like a flock of cartridges. No two
stay together, and it becomes a matter of
trailing them down one at a time, some
thing exceedingly difficult in the noun
tains, every foot of which every Indian
knows. These red bandits have a noun
tain country 500 miles in length by 200
miles in width. A band of them will
make a raid from one mountain pass, dis
appear by another, leaving behind them
only the bloody corpses of their victims,
and an uncertainty as to where the torch
and scalping knife will next be at work.
They are superstitious to a degree, and
blindly follow the DEGREES of their "medi-
cine This medicine, in default of an
authorized manufacturer, they will get up
among themselves, not a first class article
perhaps with the latest machinery i'm
provements. but one that will answer
every purpose. Several of chem will get
together, spread an old blanket above
them, sing and recite their butchering ex-
PLOTS and get up a nervous excitement until
one of them works himself into a very
dirty and greasy species Of ~ecstatic trance.
This is now the medicine man pro TEN
and in the mirror of his translated saw
agery, is recognized the course to be pur-
sued. The information thus clearly at
tanned is at once acted upon and blindly
f,llovad