ht
had fairly begun.

John Slaughter's wife was a brave woman. She rode beside him now on
many an expedition; into the sand-hills of southwestern New Mexico,
and down across the border into northern Sonora. She saw the smoking
remnants of wagon-trains beside the road, the bodies of Apaches'
victims sprawled among the ruins. She looked upon the unutterably
lonely crosses which marked the graves of travelers where Victorio's
turbaned warriors had traveled before her into Mexico. She slept
beside her husband where the desert night wind whispered of lurking
enemies; and watched enshadowed soap-weeds beyond the ring of
firelight taking on the semblance of creeping savages.

He beheld her drinking deeply from the cup of dread which was the
bitter portion of the strong-hearted women of the frontier. And when
he journeyed away without her he had for company the constant
knowledge of what other men had found on return to their ravaged
homes--what might be awaiting him when he came back. And so he
enlarged the scope of his warfare, which heretofore had been confined
to the defensive; he began a grim campaign to keep the Apaches out of
his portion of the San Pedro valley for all time.

He led his own war-parties out to hunt down every roving band who
passed through the country. He used their own science of reading
trails to track them to their camping-places; and their own wiles to
steal upon them while they rested. He improved on their methods by
making his raids during the darkness when their superstitions made
them afraid to go abroad.

One midnight he was deploying a company of Mexicans about the
mesquite-thicket which sheltered a band of warriors. As he was about
to give the whispered order to close in, the unknown dangers which
awaited them within the blackness became too much for his followers.
They balked, then began to fall back. He drew his forty-five.

"First man that shows another sign of hanging back, I'll kill him," he
said in Spanish, and drove them before him to the charge.

Gradually the Apaches began changing their warpaths into Mexico, and
as they swung away from his ranges John Slaughter increased the radius
of his raids until he and his cow-boys rode clear over the summits of
the passes in the Sierra Madre which lead eastward into Chihuahua.

With nine seasoned fighters at his heels he attacked a war-party in
the heights of the range on the dawn of a summer morning; and when the
Indians fled before th