Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/184

 moment of feeding and grooming the mules. The care shown equals almost that given to the average baby, and the dumb animals seem to respond to all attentions. General Crook kept himself posted as to what was done to every mule, and, as a result, had the satisfaction of seeing his trains carrying a net average of three hundred and twenty pounds to the mule, while a pamphlet issued by the Government had explicitly stated that the highest average should not exceed one hundred and seventy-five. So that, viewed in the most sordid light, the care which General Crook bestowed upon his trains yielded wonderful results. Not a day passed that General Crook did not pass from one to two hours in personal inspection of the workings of his trains, and he has often since told me that he felt then the great responsibility of having his transportation in the most perfect order, because so much was to be demanded of it.

The packers themselves were an interesting study, drawn as they were from the four corners of the earth, although the major portion, as was to be expected, was of Spanish-American origin. Not an evening passed on this trip across the mountains of the Mogollon Range that Crook did not quietly take a seat close to the camp-fire of some of the packers, and listen intently to their "reminiscences" of early mining days in California or "up on the Frazer in British Columbia." "Hank 'n Yank," Tom Moore, Jim O'Neill, Charlie Hopkins, Jack Long, Long Jim Cook, and others, were "forty-niners," and well able to discuss the most exciting times known to the new Pactolus, with its accompanying trying days of the vigilance committee and other episodes of equal interest. These were "men" in the truest sense of the term; they had faced all perils, endured all privations, and conquered in a manly way, which is the one unfailing test of greatness in human nature. Some of the narratives were mirth-provoking beyond my powers of repetition, and for General Crook they formed an unfailing source of quiet amusement whenever a chance offered to listen to them as told by the packers.

One of our men—I have forgotten to mention him sooner—was Johnnie Hart, a very quiet and reserved person, with a great amount of force, to be shown when needed. There was little of either the United States or Mexico over which he had not wandered as a mining "prospector," delving for metals, precious or non-precious. Bad luck overtook him in Sonora just about when