The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-02
WHEN THE INDIANS ZION.
BIG MIKES FIGHT FOR 4 RISER
 NATION

For His Brother Apaches-Ousts set-
 tiers of Old Fort Mcdowell in Arizona
 Sold Out to squaw-InteriOr De-
 partment Bombarded With Letters
 The Bad Luck of Mcdowell.
 If the settlers of old Fort Mcdowell in Arizona had been told six months ago that Big Mike and his brother Apaches would oust them from their homes and build their wigwams in their deserted dooryards they would have considered it a good joke. But Big Mike now camps beside a lovely adobe residence, purchased at a good price by the Great Father at Washington, and the former owner of that house has al ready gone his way with a large sign like this scrawled on the back of his bureau:
 SOLD OUT TO A sQUAW.
 The painful feature of it all, from the settlers point of view, is that the Apa- ches never had any rights on the prem ises. The balm for this injured feeling lies in the fact that this is dry year in Arizona-and Uncle Sam pays cash. So in six months the long adobe houses, the fences, the irrigation canals, the great fields of corn, where the lazy ln- dians formerly labored at pittanee, have all been turned over to the noble red man, and every Mojave Apache IS a proud buck.
 For the first time in the history of over the white man. But that Big Mike of Fort McDowell could ever oust them from their homes was the last thought in the inds of the settlers-be- cause history was against it.
 To begin at the beginning, Fort Me Dpwell was built in the sixties to gar- rison enough soldiers to fight these same Apaches, and a big graveyard the Indians made spite of them, and lone ly crosses on a thousand mountain ridges. From within these adobe walls sallied forth Lawton and Chaffee and Cook and many another noted fighter, and by 1889 the fort was abandoned for lack of Indians, those who were not dead beig driven far back into the mountains or confined at San Carlos and other reservations.
 As the soldiers passed out other white men dropped in behind. They bought the fort buildings at their own price, and, having no legal right tothe land, nevertheless settled down and made themselves at home. Through the can- als which the soldiers had dug from the Verde river they still took out wa ter and raised fine crops of corn and beans and hay. And for thirteen years they dwelt in relative peace.
 The peace of Fort McDowell was rel ative to the number of Apaches who camped on the ridges above them. For, while there were 'jackals' on the hills, there were trails to the cornfields and, so they say, an increasing mortality among hogs and calves. As the Indi- ans on the ridges were either wander ing families from the mountains or bucks with hunting permits from San Carlos over 100 miles away, there was no Indian agent or person having au- thority over them, and so the settlers had to beak even by the dodges of trade. Yet 1t was easier to steal than to earn at such wages, and the settlers at Mcdowell felt aggrieved. Then they made their fatal mistake.
 With petitions and letters they bonn barded the department of the interior until there were officials in Washington who knew where Fort McDowell was thirty miles northeast of Phoenix. And while the settlers prayed that the land be thrown open to legal settle nent, they requested particularly that the Mojave Apaches be removed i'm nediately. Locating the right man to hear their grievances-it was under the head of the Indian depredations-they swanped hi with complaints about stolen hogs and similar losses until the department of the interior began to feel overworked and tooknotice.
 It was just at this time that bad luck cae to McDowell in the person of a missionary-a little man who distrib- uted religious literature and sympathy with telling effect, though scorned by the warlike settlers. Soon he became to the Indians a guide, adviser friend, and, by communicating with the offici- als at Washington, he was able to help them in various ways. Then he plan- ned 8 great coup. Without consulting tition setting forth the Indians case, alleging incidentally that the white men were desperate characters, without morality or justice, and then with Big Mike. the leader of the Apaches at Mc- Dewell, he took the paper from camp to camp securing the mark or signature of all the Indians.
 These papers were sent to Washing ton, and, since they cast a light upon the subject, they soon reached the hands of the harassed officials, who were being importuned to open the Me- Dowell military reservation for settle ment. With them came also protests from the powerful Indians Rights as- sociation( (to which Big Mike and the missionary had likewise appealed; and, since there seemed to be no end to the uproar, the Department of the Interior decided take definite step in the matter.
 As a first move, the petition of Big Mike and the missionary, with all it's al- legations and accusations, was forward ed to the truculent citizens of Fort Me Dowell who were so earnest in their protests against hog-stealing. And then the rouble began. Without in forming the missionary of their inten-