Los Angeles
Mining Review
Los Angeles, California, May 6th, 1911
Vol. 30, No. 7
Page 10
PIONEERING iN ARIZONA
Mr. C.B. Genung
April, 1871
There had been a very large band of Tonto Apaches in the
country and the day before they made the attack at Antelope
Hill and killed Wycoff and wounded John Burger, they had
taken in a wagon train near Camp Date Creek. The wagon was
loaded with quartermaste?s supplies. The Indians took the
mules and all the supplies they could handle and then crossed
over the Weaver range near where they jumped the Peeple’s
Valley party.
The Indians had a way of lying back on the trail that they had
run stock over and try to waylay any party that might follow in
pursuit. That was what they were doing, lying back on their trail
to ambush the soldiers who might be sent after them when the
Peeple’s Valley party crossed their trail on their way to
Wickenburg. Nor had they left the mountains three days later,
when I passed over the same ground with my party. My wife
was the first to see them dodging through the brush getting to a
good place to waylay us. I stopped my team as soon as I saw
the Indians and although I had a strong party, I had never seen
but one of them under fire, and so he was the only one whose
staying qualities I could be dead sure of, and that was my
partner. So I told him to get up on a high granite boulder which
was near by and to keep the other men with him, while I would
see what I could do with the reds. The Indians would not stand
for my work, but made off up a brushy canyon.
The Indians had expected the soldiers from Camp Date Creek to
follow them, and that accounted for their hanging back on the
trail so long, but the soldiers were too smart to be caught in any
such trap as that.
I found Burger at Antelope Creek, in a prospector’s cabin. He
was shot through the left thigh, but the bone was not injured; he
also had three gunshot wounds in his right side, one rib being
shot entirely off. The doctor from Camp Date Creek had been
there to see him, looked at his wounds, took hold of the rib and
tried to pull it out, and then went off and left him. When outside
the cabin he told a prospector named Norwood that Burger
could not live, mounted his horse and, with his escort of twenty
soldiers, rode away. When I reached the cabin I made Burger as
comfortable as I could, left Norwood to take care of him, and
promised to have him brought to my ranch as soon as he
thought he could stand the trip. It was ten miles over a very
rough mountain and only wagon tracks for a road.
In a few days after I reached home the dogs held up some one
about a hundred yards from the house, one night after I had
gone to bed. I heard a white man talking to the dogs and called
them in. It turned out to be Norwood, who had come from
Burger with a note asking me to send him $65 to pay the
doctor. Five soldiers had brought the bill from the army post at
Date Creek and Norwood had come up the mountain in the
night and was to return before day, as the soldiers were waiting.
I wrote a letter to the doctor, who was what was known as a
contract doctor. It was not a very pious billet-doux, and in it I
promised to see him and settle with him “right” at the first
opportunity. I put the letter in a sealed envelope and directed it
to the doctor. I told Norwood to tell Burger I had put a check in
the letter.
A few days after sending the letter I filled my ambulance with
loose hay and went after Burger. I brought him home and cared
for him until he was well enough to go to work again. But he
was always a cripple for the want of proper care at first. I knew
that they would find out at Camp Date Creek that Burger had
been moved to my house, and I used to hope the doctor would
ride over some day and present his bill in person. No such luck.
The next I heard of him he had left the post and gone to San
Bernardino.
