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Show 56 REPORT OF THE BOARD OF INDIAN COMMISSIONERS. near their camp. There is a singular mystery regarding their sudden departure that I cannot understand. The robbery of the mail- stage, and the killing of five citizens, a week ago, by an un-known party, near Wickenburgh, of course is laid to the Indians. At first even the Prescott papers partially admitted that it was a part of Mexican bandits from Sonora. Indians, when they attack a stage, are not apt to leave the horses, blankets, and cur-tains of the coach behind; in this case they did. 1 do not believe there was an Apache near the scene of the murder. All honest men have the same opinion, if they dared to express it. Yours, truly, & c., N. A. M. DUDLEY, Brevet Colonel United States Army. Hon. VINCENT COLYKR, Commissioner. I Sixth letter.'] CAMP VERDE RESERVATION. APACHE MOIIAVES. CAMP VERDE, ARIZONA TERRITORY, October 3, 1871. We arrived at Camp Verde on the evening of September 30. General Grover and the officers under his command at the post received us kindly. Early in the morning after our arrival, at my request the general sent out an Indian interpreter to inform the Apache Mohaves of our arrival, and to request them to meet us at the Springs, twenty- five miles up the valley of the Verde, on the following day at noon. Arrange-ments were made to have one thousand pounds of corn, three beef- cattle; and a good supply of clothing forwarded to the Spring, and at daybreak October 2 we were up and ready for the journey. General Grover, a lieutenant, ( former commandant of the post,) Mr. Beal, a citizen, Mr. Ward the interpreter, and an escort of five cavalry ac-companied us. The beef- cattle were driven ahead, and the corn and clothing carried on twelve pack- mules. We arrived at the Spiing about noon. General Grover selected for our camp a clear hill- top a short distance above the Spring overlooking the valley. There were no Indians to be seen, though there was smoke burning up a near ravine. The Indian interpreter informed us that he had been to several of their villages, and found many were sick from want of food, but that all who were able had promised to come. General Grover, thinking that the presence of several white men who, return-ing from a deer hunt, had followed u?, might be one of the causes of the absence of the Indians, suggested that they should be requested to leave us. I agreed with him, and the hunters went down the valley. Soon after their departure, Soulay, the head chief, and five Apache Mohaves arrived. Soulay was so emaciated from sickness and hunger that the general hardly recognized him. He was so weak he lay down on the ground, his head resting under the shade of a sage- brush. There were no trees near. The general thinking that he was suffering from au attack of intermittent fever, I prepared a mix. ture of quinine and whisky and gave it to him, but he soon asked for food, which we gave him. After an hour or two he recovered his strength and we had a talk. He pointed to the valley of the Verde below, where a white man had erected a cabin the year before, and said, " Where that house stands I have always planted corn ; I went there this spring to plant corn, and the white man told me to go away or he would shoot me ; so I could not plant corn there any more. Many white men hunted for deer over his mountains, like the three men who had just gone down the valley ; that if they met any Indians they shot them, and that they killed all the game or frightened them so much the Indians could not get near them with their bows and arrows, and as the white people would not let them have any ammunition, they could not kill the deer. There was some mesquite beans, mescal, and cactus figs on the mountains, but they could not live on that in the winter, and they did not see what was left for them but to die. If they went to the post to get some food they could not get any, and the general scolded them about their young men stealing and drove them off. The chiefs could not get anything for their people to eat ; they were gradually losing their influ-ence over their young men, who, finding themselves starving, would occasionally go on the roads and farms and steal stock to eat ; he knew it was wrong, but how could he stop it, or blame them, when they were all dying for food ?" At my request the In-dians kindled more fire, and sent out three more runners to bring the Indians in. Dur-ing the afternoon four parties of three or four each arrived; they were hungry and nearly naked, and confirmed the interpreter's story that numbers of the Indians in the villages from which they came were too sick to come in. We gave them food and clothing. During the night several fires answering our signals were seen on the mount- |