women and children into slavery. Mines became unworkable; farms had
to be deserted; the churches, built by the Spaniards, mouldered into
decay. The raiders had made themselves absolute masters, and so bold
were they that at one time a certain month in the year was set apart
for their plundering excursions and called "the moon of the Mexicans,"
a fact which did not prevent them from robbing at other seasons. Often
troops would follow them far into the mountains, but the "braves"
fought so skilfully, and hid so well in the natural fortresses of
their native domain, that the pursuit never came to anything, and
the Mexicans were completely paralysed with fear. The dread of the
terrible pillagers was so great that even at the time when I first
went into the district, the Mexicans did not consider it a crime to
shoot an Apache at sight.

Such a scourge did this tribe become that the Governor of Chihuahua
had a law passed through the Legislature, which put a certain price
upon the head of every Apache. But this law had soon to be repealed,
as the Mexicans, eager to get the reward, took to killing the peaceful
Tarahumares, whose scalps, of course, could not be distinguished from
those of the Apaches.

It was not even now safe for a small party to cross the Sierra Madre,
as dissatisfied Apaches were constantly breaking away from the San
Carlos Reservation in Arizona, and no Mexican could have been induced
to venture singly into that vast unknown domain of rock and forest,
about which lingered such painful memories of bloodshed and terror. [2]
In the early part of our journey a Mexican officer had called on me
to offer, in the name of the Governor of the State of Sonora, his
services as escort and protection against the Apaches; but I declined
the courtesy, preferring to depend rather upon my own men. I am happy