This little story always makes go hmmmm......
3-19-37. 670 words INTERVIEW
Rufus M. Dunnahoo
(Age Eighty-eight Years) Oldest Roswell Pioneer
Geronimo's Band Indians Stole Teams Horses.
"We hadn't been at Seven Rivers long when Geronimo's Apaches came and stole all the teams-32head of their horses.
"I bought the old Beckwith Ranche and had my horses in a five foot high and two foot thick, adobe corral, near the house so the Indians didn't get mine. Indians Disappeared in Cave
Another time Geronimo and sixteen other Indians broke out of the Mescalero Reservation one day, and the soldiers after them tho'ught they had them safe in a cave about two and a half miles east, a little north of Fort Stanton, two hundred yards from the Bonito River. The soldiers tho'ught to starve the Indians out, but the Indians never came back, so the soldiers tracked them thro'ugh the cave down a river about 14 miles.
The Indians went thro'ugh the cave to south side of Capitan Mountains and stole a bunch of horses and drove them on down this far,. They camped right where the New Mexico Military Institute is located now. I think Pat Garrett and a posse captured the Indians over in the Portales country.
"The cave tho'se Indians and soldiers went in is not as large or as beautiful as Carlsbad Caverns. There is one big room. An underground river flows thro'ugh all of the cave.