Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/175

 one of these—Guy V. Henry's—ran in on a party of hostile Apaches and exchanged shots, killing one warrior whose body fell into our hands. The course of those who were to accompany General Crook was nearly due west, along the rim of what is called the Mogollon Mountain or plateau, a range of very large size and great elevation, covered on its summits with a forest of large pine-trees. It is a strange upheaval, a strange freak of nature, a mountain canted up on one side; one rides along the edge and looks down two and three thousand feet into what is termed the "Tonto Basin," a weird scene of grandeur and rugged beauty. The "Basin" is a basin only in the sense that it is all lower than the ranges enclosing it—the Mogollon, the Matitzal and the Sierra Ancha—but its whole triangular area is so cut up by ravines, arroyos, small stream beds and hills of very good height, that it may safely be pronounced one of the roughest spots on the globe. It is plentifully watered by the affluents of the Rio Verde and its East Fork, and by the Tonto and the Little Tonto; since the subjugation of the Apaches it has produced abundantly of peaches and strawberries, and potatoes have done wonderfully on the summit of the Mogollon itself in the sheltered swales in the pine forest. At the date of our march all this section of Arizona was still unmapped, and we had to depend upon Apache guides to conduct us until within sight of the Matitzal range, four or five days out from Camp Apache.

The most singular thing to note about the Mogollon was the fact that the streams which flowed upon its surface in almost every case made their way to the north and east into Shevlon's Fork, even where they had their origin in springs almost upon the crest itself. One exception is the spring named after General Crook (General's Springs), which he discovered, and near which he had such a narrow escape from being killed by Apaches—that makes into the East Fork of the Verde. It is an awe-inspiring sensation to be able to sit or stand upon the edge of such a precipice and look down upon a broad expanse mantled with juicy grasses, the paradise of live stock. There is no finer grazing section anywhere than the Tonto Basin, and cattle, sheep, and horses all now do well in it. It is from its ruggedness eminently suited for the purpose, and in this respect differs from the Sulphur Springs valley which has been occupied by cattlemen to the exclusion of the farmer, despite the fact that all along its length