Grant. A cry escaped all of us at this justification
of our suspicions.

"That settles it!" ground out Oury, between his set teeth. "It's them
Injuns or us. And--it won't be us."

We returned to Tucson, rounded up a party consisting of about fifty
Papagos, forty-five Mexicans and ourselves, and set out for Camp Grant.
We reached the fort at break of day, or just before, and before the
startled Apaches could fully awaken to what was happening, or the
near-by soldiers gather their wits together, eighty-seven Aravaipa
Apaches had been slain as they lay. The Papagos accounted for most of
the dead, but we six white men and our Mexican friends did our part. It
was bloody work; but it was justice, and on the frontier then the whites
made their own justice.

All of us were arrested, as a matter of course, and when word reached
General Sherman at Washington from the commander of the military forces
at Fort Grant, an order was issued that all of us were to be tried for
murder. We suffered no qualms, for we knew that according to frontier
standards what we had done was right, and would inevitably have been
done some time or another by somebody. We were tried in Judge Titus'
Territorial Court, but, to the dismay of the military and General
Sherman, who of course knew nothing of the events that had preceded the
massacre, not a man in the jury could be found who would hang us. The
Territory was searched for citizens impartial enough to adjudge the
slaying of a hostile Apache as murder, but none could be found. The
trial turned out a farce and we were all acquitted, to receive the
greatest demonstration outside the courtroom that men on trial for their
lives ever received in Arizona, I think. One thing that made our
acquittal more than certain was the fact, brought out at the trial, that
the dress of Mrs. Wooster and a pair of moccasins belonging to her
husband were found on the bodies of Indians whom we killed. Lieutenant
Whitman, who was in command at Fort Grant, and on whom the
responsibility for the conduct of the Indians wintering there chiefly
rested, was soon after relieved from duty and transferred to another
post. General George Crook arrived to take his place late in 1871. The
massacre had occurred on the last day of April of that year.

Other raids occurred. Al Peck, an old and valued friend of mine, had
several experiences with the Apaches, which culminated in the Peck raid
of April 27, 1886, when Apaches jumped his r