New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-07-12
CUMMING WITH An APACHE.
THE EPISODE OF"TADS. n

have smiled at III once myeeu. lSub we are III
creatures of circumstance. and l was tenderfoot
then anyway. This is how chummed 1t with my
little Indian
/ was swinging my red.and-blue clubs under
the pepper-ree at the back Of the railroad station.
This did because 1 had n theory that exercise
was good for a man living on desert. The lazy
Mexicans, and most Of the Americans thereabouts.
had no rudddy glow their faces. They were
all sallow. What wanted was q rudy glow.
Ny red-and-blue clubs crcled about very pref
tily that day, and the rudy glow came also
dripping epiderms and big desire 10 sit down
in the shade Of tie pepper-tree and blow tobacco
smoke The tree was small one no, m ftsn the n.
roots received little moisture. 80 IL grew,
slowly.
gust went up from somewhere, and, as | turned
about, ! saw small, brown head dart behind
cactus-lined rock.
| said nothing but leaned back on my seat,
pulled my sombreto down over my face. and
slammed sleep, with one half-closed eye on the
rock and the big cactus-shrubs; No use. You
Next day, with my beautiful exercise theory
still bristling in my BRAIN. / turned quickly,
while in the midst of my club-swinging, and saw
the wide-cpen eyes and gaping mouth OF the
cunningest little savage j had ever beheld. lie
sprang about and fled behind the rock, but not
too quickly for me TO read AAA Family fl9ur
in large red letters on his back. His one short
garment was cotton sack, with holes cut through
it for his head and arms.
Come, Tads." | Cried christening HIM IN thht
feeting second with name that stuck to hum all
his life, "out of that!" And L Jumped Dehnd
the rock, swinging an open hand that did MOI
grasp the fiour-sack as L had intended IL shouid'
Where the wee sayagep
Like lizard, he had darted from sight some
where in that little patch of rocks and cactus,
though there did no appear to be cover enough
there to conceal jack-rabbit.
Tho spines must scratch him." l Thought, as
looked at the prickly cactus but did not know
nns Not %aens to up give the boy
torture, | went back TO my clubs. Throwing my
eyes about again, I caught another fieeting
the rock.
Tads must have been disappointed next day.
for there was no clubswnging under the pepper
tree The duties of telegraph-agent lay too heav-
lily upon me. and the sun lay too heavily upon
the desert. l Tads steal away from his
lair about two hours after my usual exercise-tme
and walk down the sand-drifS with detected
air, his one garment tapping in the hot wind
wild nature like this was proof against such
orange, or the mealy peanut. found that out by
trial in the course of the next week. But an Old
jack-knife won him over That was something
his Apache mind could grasp. 1t was o greater
delight TO him than the red-andblue clubs Sworn
friends from that day Tads and /. His talk
was ridiculous mixture of English. Spanish and
understood him. Indian-like, he said little 10
was, therefore. easy to get along with him lie
the S" mi tankS of my sounder The tee,
graph was an awful mystery TO him at first, and
it squelched his imagination; but he solved the
tains spoke with his finger to me and spoke back
to him That was his idea of it, and it was not
such bad one either Ihe hu% IN na5e OF the
ponderOus fingers but they were not of this world.
How the cowboys laughed when they saw Tads
and me in the station.
THAT tenderfoots q queer one" they said of
The despised Apache could not crawl into their
bearts-nO, not even IL he were a slX-year-old.
q" He'll steal everything the tenderfoots got"
they pleasantly. averred. But he did not.
When lads left the station of an evening, his
10 hro fact nafta rpd err lOnf
TO the wickups a half-mile away. In time he
wore narrow trail over TO the huts
pity veil" was what Tads would grunt to
me every day when he came shXly into the office,
and greeted him with friendly, HOw-de-dop"
Then he would shrug his shoulders in way that
wrinlled the three KS into such ewildering folds
that you could not have read them unless you had
known what they were beforehand.
One day while he was meandering about the
place, grunting quietly TO himself he upset one OF
"Tads, ; l cried, angrily, for the deserts breath
alone spilled vitriOl. you're little beast! Skip
out of here, or I'll take stick to yOu!'
Then arose great howl from Iads, and he kept
on bowling until an Apache woman came over tho
sands from the wickiups and gathered him up in
her arms. She was his mother. She eyed me
suspiciousy and walked away with her highly
OF course | regretted my hot language and
wanted the little beggar back again 1t was so
heart brollenly while the sun beat down iercely
in the daytime and the coyotes yelled 50 doefully
at night. How he had crept into my heart, to be
sure
1t was several days before we were salts
factory terms again. Tads wanted to be white
man. He wanted to make talk marks" on
"pupper" with feather-I sometimes used quill
pen, be it remarked-and he wanted to speak with
bis finger We'll, did manage to teach him a few
letters from q railroad poster. and he learned TO
drawi out lads" in a droll way With per.
severance that was really startling, l afterward
took him in an uncertain way through a page or
two of Can you see the fat OK" and SO on,
wherefore his heart glad.
"Fll be wife mans, heap sure he declared in
his bull-frog voice, after he had accomplished this
Great distress racked Tad's soul on the fatal
day when the wickiups were taken down and the
tribe mounted its mustangs to go over the hills.
The Apaches had to search all over the station to
find Tads. At last, they hauled him forth from
under my bunk, screaming like mad. or no
avail were his screams, of no avail was his cry:
"Me yanter stay wild himl Me yanter be wife
mans!'
Apache papas are unbending and Apache man.
mas are memorable. Away they whisked Iads
leaving behind him a tenderfoot with queer
We'll the boy, has the instincts Of a white
maa sd Of him. PUa be- be- SHINING at
among those deviish people OF his If we had
few more like him to put among them, the Apache
question would settle itself, and we could set our
Then I took np the restless life of a city man.
and a big and busy railroad-olice claimed a good
share of my attention for the next ten years. Yes
il was fully that long before I again set foot upon
the desert Our train stopped at the old station
How the pepper-tree had grown, TO be sure, In
its shade sat a cavary-seTgeant with half-dozen
Of his men about him. and in their midst were
three Indian prisoners, who were being taken to
the fort 10 be shot
They were fierce-lOoking fellows those three
savages There was one the youngest, who was
q perfect demon, the soldiers said
KILLED three women and two babies down 40
Mustang Wash last Tuesday, said the sergeant
TO me: :" Just after one of them had given him his
breakfast too He's n young one, not more than
seventeen, should say: but he's the worst red
devil I ever saw"
Gazing at the hoy captive, strange feeling stole
over me- The stolid face was oddly familiar.
His name? Blest if ! know said the ser
ceant "what do you call yourself. young one 81
he asked giving him not too delicate poke with
the toe of his boot
Me? Why my names TaGs!' grunted the
boy.