Low Twelve

LOW TWELVE I

I shall never forget the visitor that we had at our lodge one evening in the early winter of 1885. I should state that my name is Alfred B. Chichester, that at that time I was a lieutenant of cavalry, stationed in the Southwest, and after two years arduous service was visiting my home in the East on furlough. Having been a Mason only a brief while, I never failed to attend the regular and generally the special meetings of the lodge. Sometimes we become neglectful as we grow older in the order, but the flush of a new and beautiful experience gave a peculiar zest to the visits on my part.

We were on the third degree when a card was sent in by the tyler announcing that Jared J. Jennings, claiming to be a Master Mason, asked for a seat among his brethren. Perhaps I was more alert than the others, for in listening to the announcement I noticed that the officer did not name the lodge from which the stranger hailed. The Master failed to observe the omission, and appointed the usual committee to go outside and examine the applicant. I was not a member of the committee which returned some time later with the information that they had examined the brother and found him to be a bright Mason. Again, while giving his name, they omitted that of his lodge. The Master ordered his admission, and a minute afterward he entered.

Every one in the lodge was struck by his appearance. I remember the thought at once occurred to me that he was the picture of William Penn, the Quaker founder of Philadelphia, and Proprietor of the State named in his honor. He was dressed in the attire of the Friends, had a handsome, smoothly shaven face, with long auburn hair curling about his shoulders, and was slightly inclined to corpulency. His yellow waistcoat with its flapping pockets descended low in front, his brown coat had similar huge flaps, but the trousers were of modern cut. Unlike Father Penn, however, he wore a massive gold chain, to which a handsome Masonic medal was pendent, and a fine diamond sparkled on his ruffled shirt front. Evidently he was a man of comfortable means.

His behavior after entering the lodge was as remarkable as his appearance. When facing the East he did not once look up, but stood with his eyes fixed on the floor at his feet. Then he began walking slowly forward, still gazing downward. Every one curiously watched him, wondering what he meant.

Suddenly, when he had reached a certain point, he stopped with an expression as of fear on his face, threw up his hands, and leaped backward a couple of paces, for all the world like a person who hears the warning whirr of a rattlesnake in the path in front of him. But it was observable that in making this singular movement, he did precisely what he should have done with his hands. He was "all right."

The Master invited him to a seat among the brethren, and courteously thanking him with an inclination of the head, Brother Jennings looked around, and seeing a vacant place at my side bowed to me with a pleasing smile and sat down.

There was something attractive to me in all this, as well is in the singular appearance of the man, and I reached out my hand. He shook it warmly, crossed his shapely legs, folded his arms and fixed his attention upon the Master. Some time later, the lodge was called to refreshment and officers and brethren mingled on the floor. I may add at this point for the benefit of those who are not Masons, that "refreshment" in a lodge means a time when all business is suspended, generally while candidates are being prepared in the anteroom for some degree. It corresponds to recess in school, and does not imply that anything in the nature of feasting or eating is going on.

The occasion gave a chance for the Master, wardens and such brothers as chose to gather around the stranger and chat with him. I was in the little knot. The Master was the first to speak.

"Brother Jennings, what lodge do you hail from?"

He smiled significantly.

"Don't feel apprehensive when I tell you that my lodge has neither name nor number, nor is it under the jurisdiction of any grand lodge."

We all looked astonished and scared. More than one suspected that a false Mason had managed to obtain admission. The Master said rather sternly:

"Be good enough to explain."

"I was made a Mason among the Chippewa Indians; your committee knows whether it was real or not."

"There can be no question about that," promptly spoke one of the committee.

"I have visited fully a score of lodges in the West and East and have never failed of admission wherever I applied."

"It is news to me that there are Masons among the Indians," remarked the Master, voicing the sentiments of the rest of us.

"Why, my dear brother, there are hundreds of them. I could relate incidents that would amaze you, in which the lives of white men have been spared through the fact that the Indians learned they were Free Masons."

"Are Masons to be found among all the tribes?"

"By no means; only among the most advanced, such as in Indian Territory. I have made the signs without being recognized in scores of instances, and then again, when I had little hope of anything of the kind, help was given me. There were many such instances during the Sioux outbreak in Minnesota, in 1862. I know of an American officer who passed entirely through the line of hostiles armed with a Masonic pass given him by one of the chiefs, who knew of his being a member of the same order with himself."

"Do you have lodge buildings among the Chippewas?" asked the Master.

"No; we always meet on the summit of a high hill, with rows of sentinels, corresponding to our three degrees. It happens now and then that a curious warrior tries to reach the lodge. He may succeed in passing the Entered Apprentice line, but is sure to be discovered by the Fellow Craft sentinels. And," added Brother Jennings, with a significant smile, "he never makes a second attempt to tread on forbidden ground."

"Why not?"

"For the reason that he is invariably put to death. I have seen it done."

The same thought was in the minds of us all; this brother had probably assisted in the executes of such an intruder.

"How is it with the Apaches?" I inquired.

Our visitor shook his head.

"I don't think you will find any Masons there. Are you specially interested in that tribe, the most terrible in our country?"

"I expect soon to return to my post in the Southwest and to help in forcing Geronimo and some of the others into subjection, and to make them good Indians."

"I'm afraid you will have to use General Sheridan's plan, when he declared that the only good Indian is a dead one. No, my brother, if you ever get into hot quarters in the Southwest, don't count on any help from the order."

After further chat the lodge was called to labor. The visitor remained through the raising of a fellow craft to the master's degree. He and I talked as we gained chance, and when the lodge broke up he invited me to call upon him at the Tremont Hotel. I presented myself on the following evening. He received me in his handsome apartments, and confirmed my belief that he was in good circumstances. He had every convenience and luxury at the command of the hotel, smoked the finest cigars and invited me to drink wine, though he did not indulge himself. When I declined, he added:

"I am glad to see it; intoxicants are an unmixed evil. I was once a hard drinker, but for ten years have not tasted a drop, and shall never do so, unless it be in dire necessity and to save my life."

Naturally I was full of curiosity concerning this remarkable man, but did not feel free to question him. He must have known of my feeling, for in the course of conversation he told me considerable about himself.

"I have an Indian name," said he, "which was given me by the Chippewas. It is 'El-tin-wa,' and means 'pale brother.' Of course, I never use it among my own people, though I was strongly tempted to send it in last night to the lodge, instead of that which I received from my parents."

"You have spent a good deal of time among the Indians?"

"Yes; I ran away from home when I was a lad. I had no intention of staying among the red men, but when our party of emigrants were crossing the plains, we were attacked one dark night by a large band and every one massacred except myself."

"How was it you escaped?"

"I don't know. I was wounded, and I suppose they thought me dead when I was found stretched senseless under one of the wagons. A chief took a fancy to me and carried me away on his horse with him to his home, where I was nursed back to health and strength. He was not a Chippewa, for that tribe lives farther to the north, but his people had friendly relations with the Chippewas, and he turned me over to them. My resolve was to escape on the first opportunity, but that was so long coming that I grew to like my new people and finally settled among them. I became a good hunter, and pleased them so well in several warlike excursions against the Sioux and other tribes, that they made me a chief and christened me, as I have told you, with the name of 'El-tin-wa.' Soon after reaching my majority, I married the daughter of another chief, and two children, a boy and a girl, were born to us."

"Then You will return to the Chippewas?"

He mournfully shook his head.

"Never; wife and both children are dead; the ties that bound me to them are broken forever. I feel no yearning to live with them again, though the whole tribe are my friends. Being free to do as I chose, I came eastward, expecting to spend the rest of my days among my own people. The years with the Chippewas, however, had wrought a change in my nature; I soon tired of the restraints of civilized life. The only relatives I had left were my aged father and a sister. Without telling them my purpose, for I knew how it would sadden them, I quietly left home and again went west ward. I spent some time among the Chippewas, but could not stand it, and began a wandering life which took me among the Sioux, the Blackfeet and many of the tribes farther south. It was another impulse of my restless state of mind that brought me eastward again to this city, where I had left my father and sister. A woeful disappointment awaited me."

I sympathetically inquired as to what he referred.

"I was prepared to hear of the death of my father, for he was an old man when I left him years before, but it never entered my mind that my sister could be dead. She was buried three years ago."

"Surely you have drunk deep from sorrow's cup," I said, as I noted the moisture in his eye and the sigh that followed his words.

"Yes; sorrow is the lot of man. I haven't a living relative in the wide world; my father and my sister died in good circumstances, so that I have enough to keep me in comfort the rest of my days, but I am like a ship at sea without a rudder."

I could think of little to comfort him. The most that I could do was to suggest that the best remedy in this world for grief is work. The man who keeps his brain and hands actively employed has no time for brooding sorrow.

"There can be no question of the truth of that, and I have thought hard over it, but am unable to fix upon any business toward which I do not feel a distaste. It would have been far better for me if my relatives had not left me a penny, though the discovery of a gold mine in the Southwest had made me rich before I came East the last time."

I made a wild venture.

"Why not go westward with me and enlist as a scout in our army? Your knowledge of the country and of Indian ways would be of vast help, for we have a big job on our hands in the subjugation of the Apaches."

I would have given much to know how this strange proposal impressed him. He was sitting beside the table in the middle of the room, his legs crossed, as was his custom, and with one elbow resting on the support. He flung away the remnant of a cigar, took another from the goblet which held several, and lit it with a match from a silver case which he carried, instead of using those in the small box beside the cigars. He puffed for a minute or two, with his eyes fixed not upon me, but upon the upper part of the ceiling on the opposite side of the room. He continued smoking, while I silently waited for him to speak. Instead of doing so he slowly shook his head. He declined my proposal for reasons which he did not choose to give. He abruptly asked:

"When do you return to your post?"

"I must leave next week, allowing myself six or eight days to reach Arizona."

"I understood you to say you have taken part in the campaign in the Southwest."

"I have spent two years in that section and found it the hardest kind of work."

"Then you know something of the Apaches?"

"I have a suspicion that I do."

"They are the most terrible tribe in the country. I have traveled among them for weeks at a time. They have been unjustly used by our people, but that is the fact with all Indians with whom we have had trouble. Back of every outbreak and massacre are broken treaties, scoundrelly agents and the lack of honor by our Government. There was no trouble with the Warm Spring Indians until 1872, when the Interior Department was persuaded into ordering them to leave their fertile grounds in Warm Spring Valley, where they were content and happy. They were forcibly shifted to the sterile region around Fort Tularosa. General Howard protested, and had them sent back to their old homes. But the covetous white villains would not let them alone, and a still greater mistake was made when they were sent to the San Carlos Reservation; for not only was the water brackish and the soil worthless, but it was the home of a thousand Chiricahua Apaches, who were the implacable enemies of the Warm Spring band, which hardly numbered three-fourths as many."

"Geronimo is the leader of the Warm Spring Indians?"

"Yes; you will have a frightful time before you subdue him and put him where he can do no further harm. I knew his father, Mangus, one of the most fiendish wretches that ever lived. He had no grievance against the white man, but massacred through sheer love of deviltry. He died with his boots or moccasins on, and left his son well trained in the ways of the merciless parent."
Noting how well my friend was informed regarding the Apaches, I asked him several questions which had puzzled us officers in the Southwest.

"One of the natives that we have enlisted against Geronimo is another chief named Chato. Do you know him?"

"Very well; he is a cousin of Geronimo, and the two profess to be inveterate enemies. Chato was the miscreant who murdered the family of Judge McComas at one of the Gila crossings; then he turned good Indian and has given you much help."

"General Miles once said to me that he never dared fully to trust Chato, though he has not been able to bring home any treacherous act to him. What do you think?"

Again my friend smoked his cigar for a minute without speaking, while he gazed thoughtfully at the opposite side of the room.

"I hardly know how to answer your question. There are mighty few Indians that can be trusted. I have met a few noble characters, but I can't name an Apache who is fireproof. I may be doing Chato injustice, but it seems to me impossible for an Indian who has been as devilish as he to become thoroughly changed. Nothing except a conversion to Christianity will do that. You mustn't be surprised if some day you discover that there is a perfect understanding between Geronimo and Chato, and the Warm Spring leader receives through some means timely warning of all your campaigns against him."

This statement made me uneasy. It was not the first time I had heard it; it was shared by more than one of our officers, and, as I have said, that sagacious leader, General Miles, was not free from distrust. I recalled that I had been on several scouting expeditions with Chato when, had he chosen to play me and my friends false, not one of us would have escaped alive. I weakly dissented from the pessimistic view of my friend.

"I may be in error; he may be honest, but suppose he is waiting for a still better chance to strike you a blow? It is not unlikely that he intends to play the role of a friend to the end, for he is a shrewd Indian, and may content himself with getting word to Geronimo when the latter is in danger. The only counsel I have to give you is to be on your guard and don't trust any of your Indian scouts or recruits farther than you are forced to trust them."

We chatted in this fashion until quite late. When I rose to bid my new friend good-night, I accepted his invitation to spend the following evening with him. Evidently he was well disposed toward me. But a surprise greeted me when I called at the desk and sent my name to his room. He had left that afternoon.

"Where has he gone?" I asked in astonishment.

"He left no word; he simply paid his bill and went to the railway station."

"Is there no word for me?"

The clerk shook his head.

Little did I dream of the circumstances in which El-tin-wa and I were next to meet.