Captured by the Navajos   By: Charles A. (Charles Albert) Curtis (1835-1907)

CAPTURED BY THE NAVAJOS

BY CAPTAIN CHARLES A. CURTIS U.S.A.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1904, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. INTRODUCES THE BOYS

II. ATTACKED BY NAVAJOS

III. WARLIKE PUEBLOS

IV. IN A NAVAJO TRAP

V. A SIEGE AND AN AMBUSCADE

VI. CROSSING THE RIVER

VII. A SWOLLEN STREAM AND STOLEN PONY

VIII. OVER THE DIVIDE A CORPORAL MISSING

IX. THE RESCUING PARTY

X. THE CORPORALS ARE PROMOTED

XI. BOTH PONIES ARE STOLEN

XII. INDIANS ON THE WAR PATH

XIII. THE BOY SERGEANTS DO GOOD SERVICE

XIV. ON THE DESERT WITHOUT WATER

XV. THE PONIES ARE FOUND

XVI. APACHES IN SKULL VALLEY

XVII. PURSUIT OF THE APACHES

XVIII. ON THE TRAIL OF THE APACHES

XIX. THE ATTACK ON THE APACHE CAMP

ILLUSTRATIONS

"EVERY ONE HELD HIS RIFLE IN READINESS TO SHOOT THE ESCAPING APACHES" Frontispiece

"MOUNTED, THE BOYS PRESENTED A WARLIKE APPEARANCE"

"CORPORAL HENRY ASKED CAPTAIN BAYARD TO INQUIRE FOR MANUEL PEREA"

"'GOD HAS GIVEN ME AMONG MANY FRIENDS, TWO THAT ARE SOMETHING MORE'"

CAPTURED BY THE NAVAJOS

I

INTRODUCES THE BOYS

It was late in the fall of the second year of the civil war that I rejoined my company at Santa Fé, New Mexico, from detached service in the Army of the Potomac. The boom of the sunrise gun awoke me on the morning after my arrival, and I hastened to attend reveille roll call. As I descended the steps of the officers' quarters the men of the four companies composing the garrison were forming into line before their barracks. Details from the guard, which had just fired the gun and hoisted the national colors, were returning to the guard house, and the officers were hastening to their places.

At the conclusion of the ceremony I turned again towards my quarters, and noticed two handsome boys, evidently aged about fifteen and thirteen, dressed in a modification of the infantry uniform of the army, and wearing corporals' chevrons. They stood near the regimental adjutant, and seemed to be reporting their presence to him.

At breakfast, the adjutant chancing to sit near me, I asked him who the youthful soldiers were.

"They are the sons of Lieutenant Colonel Burton, Corporals Frank and Henry," he replied. "They hold honorary rank, and are attached to head quarters, acting as messengers and performing some light clerical work."

"How do they happen to be in Santa Fé?"

"Mother recently died in the East, and the colonel had them sent here in charge of a tutor who is to fit them for college, I believe."

Later, on the same day, being desirous of looking over this ancient Indian and Mexican town, I was making a pedestrian tour of its streets, and chanced to be opposite San Miguel School in the eastern section during the pupils' recess. Half a dozen boys were engaged in throwing the lasso over the posts of the enclosing fence, when suddenly from a side street appeared the young corporals whom I had seen at reveille.