he heights, they paused at times to send
bands of warriors down into the flat lands which lie along the course
of the Santa Cruz. Here were ranches and a few small settlements. It
was the custom of the raiders to steal upon these places, always in
force superior to that of their enemies, camouflaging themselves by
bits of brush and handfuls of earth which they stuck among the folds
of their turbans and spread over their bare backs until one looking at
them from a distance of twenty-five yards would never suspect the
presence of lurking warriors.

In this manner they lay along the roadside biding the wagon-trains and
stages, or crept up on ranch-houses, or wormed their way toward
sleeping prospectors at the hour of dawn. And when they felt sure that
the issue was safely in their hands they opened fire.

During the Civil War times they put the Butterfield stage line out of
business and were an important factor in determining the northern
route for the carrying of the United States mails to California; they
wiped out the ranches of the valleys until cattle-raising and
agriculture ceased entirely; they raided the pueblo of Tubac until its
people finally fled for safety to Tucson and then they burned the
deserted buildings. They made a howling waste out of southeastern
Arizona.

Travel was suspended; there was no ranching and nearly every mine in
this portion of the territory was abandoned. Of northern Sonora they
made a source of supply for their horses and drove whole herds out of
Mexico, using the surplus animals for food, keeping the rest for
mounts until these knuckled under from hard treatment.

During the years that followed the Civil War those fat days came to an
end. Fresh troops were sent out from Washington. Mangus Colorado was
captured by a detachment of cavalry and, according to the story of one
present, was killed in his blankets by the troopers who guarded him.
White settlers, stung to reprisals by the barbarity of successive
massacres, hunted down several bands of the Apaches at their
rancherias and wiped them out in night attacks, men, women, and
children. Cochise found himself faced with a new set of conditions and
changed his tactics to meet them.

It was the habit of the Apaches to rest between the long forced
marches of their raids, choosing always a spot high in the mountains
where the mescal plant grew. Here they would gather the roots of the
thorny vegetable, bury them in the earth, kindle roari