Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/168

 summoned together at the time; some were good, and others were good for nothing. They were a fair sample of the social driftwood of the Southwest, and several of them had been concerned in every revolution or counter-revolution in northwestern Mexico since the day that Maximilian landed. Manuel Duran, the old Apache, whom by this time I knew very intimately, couldn't quite make it all out. He had never seen so many troops together before without something being in the wind, and what it meant he set about unravelling. He approached, the morning we arrived at Sulphur Springs, and in the most confidential manner asked me to ride off to one side of the road with him, which I, of course, did.

"You are a friend of the new Comandante," he said, "and I am a friend of yours. You must tell me all."

"But, Manuel, I do not fully understand what you are driving at."

"Ah, mi teniente, you cannot fool me. I am too old; I know all about such things."

"But, tell me, Manuel, what is this great mystery you wish to know?"

Manuel's right eyelid dropped just a trifle, just enough to be called a wink, and he pointed with his thumb at General Crook in advance. His voice sank to a whisper, but it was still perfectly clear and plain, as he asked: "When is the new Comandante going to pronounce?"

I didn't explode nor roll out of the saddle, although it was with the greatest difficulty I kept from doing either; but the idea of General Crook, with five companies of cavalry and one of scouts, revolting against the general Government and issuing a "pronunciamiento," was too much for my gravity, and I yelled. Often in succeeding years I have thought of that talk with poor Manuel, and never without a chuckle.

We learned to know each other, we learned to know Crook, we learned to know the scouts and guides, and tell which of them were to be relied upon, and which were not worth their salt; we learned to know a great deal about packers, pack-mules and packing, which to my great surprise I found to be a science and such a science that as great a soldier as General Crook had not thought it beneath his genius to study it; and, applying the principles of military discipline to the organization of trains, make them