Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 62: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

52 days to talk about a man’s bravery. Either that, or else the bravery was taken for granted. In that same cafion near Camp Grant two teamsters died, as the berserks of old used to like to die, taking many enemies with them to the great hereafter. James Price, a former soldier, was the name of one, and the name which men wrote on the headboard of the other was Whisky Bill. By. that appellation you may sketch your own likeness of these two; and to help you out, you are hereby reminded that the gray dust of those Arizona roads used to settle into the deep lines of the mule-skinner’s faces beyond all possibility of removal; the sun and wind used to flay their skins to a deep, dull redness. Whisky Bill and Jim Price with an escort of two cavalry troopers were driving two wagons belonging to Thomas Venable, loaded with hay for Camp Grant, when fifty Apaches ambushed them in the canon. Price was killed at the first volley and one of the soldiers was badly wounded in the face. The three living men took refuge under the wagons and stood off several rushes of the savages. Then the soldier who had een wounded got a second bullet and made up his mind he would be of more use in trying to seek help at Fort Grant than in staying here. He managed to creep off into the brush before the Indians got sight of him. Now Whisky Bill and the other soldier settled down to make an _ afternoon’s fight of it, and for three hours they held off the savages. . Half a dozen naked bodies lay limp among the rocks to bear witness to the old teamster’s marksmanship when a ball drilled him through the chest and he sank back dving. There was only one chance now“for the remaining trooper, and he took it. With his seven-shot rifle he dived out from under the wagon and gained the nearest clump of brush. At once the Apaches sallied forth from their cover in full cry after him. Heedless of their bullets, he halted long enough to face about and slay the foremost of his pursuers; then ran on to a pile of rocks, from which he made another brief stand, only to leave the place as his enemies hesitated before his fire. Thus he fled, stopping to shoot when those behind him were coming too close for comfort; and Adventure eventually they gave up the chase. In Camp Grant, where he arrived at sundown, he found his fellow trooper, badly wounded but expected to live, under care of the post surgeon. And the detach- ment who went out after the renegades buried the two teamsters beside the road where they had died fighting. Pea ONE against many; that was the # W@ rule in these grim fights. But the m4 XN affair which took place on the Cie- nega de Souz, fifteen miles above the old San Simon stage-station and twenty-five miles from Fort Bowie, tops them all when it comes to long odds. On the twenty-first day of October, 1871, one sick man battled for his life against sixty-odd Apaches and— won out. | R. M. Gilbert was his name; he was ranching and for the sake of mutual aid in case of Indian raids he had built his adobe house at one end of his holding, within two hundred yards of his neighbor’s home. The buildings stood on bare ground at the summit of a little rise near the Cie- nega bottom, where the grass and tules grew waist-high. Early in the month of October Gilbert was stricken with fever, and Richard Barnes, the neighbor, moved into his house to take care of him. The patient dragged along after a fashion until the early morning of the twenty-first found him, wasted al- most to skin and bone, weak, bedridden. And at about six o’clock that morning Barnes left the house to go to his own adobe. The Apaches, according to their habit when they went forth to murder isolated settlers or prospectors, had chosen the dawn for the hour of attack, and they were lying in the tall grass in the Cienega bottom when Barnes emerged from the building. They let him go almost to the other adobe before they opened fire; and he dropped at the volley, dying from several wounds. Then Gilbert, who had not stirred from his bed for many days, leaped from his blankets and took down a Henry rifle from the cabin wall. He had been weak; now that thing which men call “sand” gave strength unto him; and he ran from _the house to rescue his companion. The Apaches were rushing from the tules toward the prostrate form. He paused long enough to level his rifle and fire; then came on again. And the savages fell back. COmicloo CN Wp) CO