The dread of the terrible pillagers was so great that even at the time when I first went into the district, the Mexicans did not consider it a crime to shoot an Apache at sight.
Such a scourge did this tribe become that the Governor of Chihuahua had a law passed through the Legislature, which put a certain price upon the head of every Apache.

But this law had soon to be repealed, as the Mexicans, eager to get the reward, took to killing the peaceful Tarahumares, whose scalps, of course, could not be distinguished from those of the Apaches.
It was not even now safe for a small party to cross the Sierra Madre, as dissatisfied Apaches were constantly breaking away from the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona, and no Mexican could have been induced to venture singly into that vast unknown domain of rock and forest, about which lingered such painful memories of bloodshed and terror.

[2] In the early part of our journey a Mexican officer had called on me to offer, in the name of the Governor of the State of Sonora, his services as escort and protection against the Apaches; but I declined the courtesy, preferring to depend rather upon my own men.

I am happy to say that I had no personal encounter with the dreaded "Shis Inday," or Men of the Woods, as they call themselves, though on one occasion we came upon fresh tracks near one of our camps, and also upon small bunches of yucca leaves tied together in a peculiar way known to the Mexicans as signs intelligible only to the Apaches.
The only precaution I had taken against possible attacks was to augment my force of trustworthy Mexican muleteers.

Among the new recruits was an honest-looking Opata Indian, who joined the camp one evening, clad in the national costume of white cotton cloth, and carrying in his hand a small bundle containing his wife's petticoat (probably intended to do duty as a blanket) and a pair of scissors.