yors'
helpers in addition to the soldier escort, served to deter the Indians,
and we had no trouble that I remember. It is perhaps worthy of note that
the railroad, as it was afterwards built--it reached Tucson in 1880--did
not exactly follow the line of this survey, not touching at Sacaton. It
passed a few miles south of that point, near the famous Casa Grande,
where now is a considerable town.

Railroad and all other surveying then was an exceedingly hazardous job,
especially in Arizona, where so many Indian massacres had already
occurred and were still to occur. In fact, any kind of a venture that
involved traveling, even for a short distance, whether it was a small
prospecting or emigrant's outfit or whether it was a long "train on
hoofs," laden with goods of the utmost value, had to be escorted by a
squad of soldiers, and often by an entire company. Even thus protected,
frequent and daring raids were made by the cruel and fearless savages,
whose only dread seemed to be starvation and the on-coming of the white
man, and who would go to any lengths to get food.

Looking back in the light of present day reasoning, I am bound to say
that it would be wrong to blame the Apaches for something their savage
and untutored natures could not help. Before the "paleface" came to the
Territory the Indian was lord of all he surveyed, from the peaks of the
mountains down to the distant line of the silvery horizon. He was
monarch of the desert and could roam over his demesne without
interference save from hostile tribes; and into his very being there was
born naturally a spirit of freedom which the white man with all his
weapons could never kill. He knew the best hunting grounds, he knew
where grew excellent fodder for his horses, he knew where water ran the
year around, and in the rainy season he knew where the waterholes were
to be found. In his wild life there was only the religion of living, and
the divinity of Freedom.

When the white man came he, too, found the fertile places, the running
water and the hunting grounds, and he confiscated them in the name of a
higher civilization of which the savage knew nothing and desired to know
less. Could the Indian then be blamed for his overwhelming hatred of the
white man? His was the inferior, the barbaric race, to be sure, but
could he be blamed for not believing so? His was a fight against
civilization, true, and it was a losing fight as all such are bound to
be, but the Indian di