drudges, and as an Apache may have
as many wives as he feels able to support, he may have as many homes as
circumstances require. The various wives are prone to be quarrelsome among
themselves, for which reason a man usually maintains one wife on one part
of the reservation and another wife perhaps many miles away.

[Illustration: Primitive Apache Home]

Primitive Apache Home

_From Copyright Photograph 1903 by E.S. Curtis_

In the good old days the radius of Apache wandering centred in the
mountains of what is now southeastern Arizona; this was their stronghold,
their lair, whence they raided to the south, well down into Sonora and
Chihuahua, westward to the Colorado river, northward into the Hopi and
Navaho country, and eastward as far at least as western Texas. From this
mountain rendezvous they swept down upon the Mexicans and Indians of
Sonora and Chihuahua, and on the Pueblo villages of the north, while in
later years they terrorized the white settlers of the entire Southwest. To
follow them was a fruitless task which often led to the destruction of the
pursuers.

The primitive Apache was a true nomad, a wandering child of Nature, whose
birthright was a craving for the warpath, with courage and endurance
probably exceeded by no other people, and with cunning beyond reckoning.
Although his character is a strong mixture of courage and ferocity, the
Apache is gentle and affectionate toward those of his own flesh and blood,
particularly his children. Fear, to him, is unknown. Death he faces with
stolid indifference; yet Apache men have been known to grieve so deeply
over the loss of a friend as to end their troubles by self-destruction.

No people could be better fitted than the Apache to conduct continuous
predatory warfare. Every form of plant and animal life pays him tribute.
An entirely naked Indian, without implements of any sort, would stop on a
mountain slope and in a few minutes be sitting by a cheerful fire
preparing a welcome meal. With a fragment of stone he would shape
fire-sticks from the dead stalk of a yucca. Sitting with the flattened
piece held firmly by his feet, a pinch of sand at the point of contact
between the two sticks, with a few deft whirls of the round stick over his
improvised hearth the lone traveller would soon have a fire kindled. Into
the blaze he would cast a few sections of green, juicy mescal(1) stalk
which, when cooked,