Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/189

 Arizona and New Mexico. There were American books, American newspapers, American magazines—the last intelligently read. The language was American, and nothing else—the man who hoped to acquire a correct knowledge of Castilian in Prescott would surely be disappointed. Not even so much as a Spanish advertisement could be found in the columns of The Miner, in which, week after week, John H. Marion fought out the battle of "America for the Americans." The stores were American stores, selling nothing but American goods. In one word, the transition from Tucson to Prescott was as sudden and as radical as that between Madrid and Manchester.

In one respect only was there the slightest resemblance: in Prescott, as in Tucson, the gambling saloons were never closed. Sunday or Monday, night or morning, the "game" went, and the voice of the "dealer" was heard in the land. Prescott was essentially a mining town deriving its business from the wants of the various "claims" on the Agua Fria, the Big Bug and Lynx Creek on the east, and others in the west as far as Cerbat and Mineral Park. There was an air of comfort about it which indicated intelligence and refinement rather than wealth which its people did not as yet enjoy.

At this time, in obedience to orders received from the Secretary of War, I was assigned to duty as aide-de-camp, and in that position had the best possible opportunity for becoming acquainted with the country, the Indians and white people in it, and to absorb a knowledge of all that was to be done and that was done. General Crook's first move was to bring the department headquarters to Prescott; they had been for a long while at Los Angeles, California, some five hundred miles across the desert, to the west, and in the complete absence of railroad and telegraph facilities they might just as well have been in Alaska. His next duty was to perfect the knowledge already gained of the enormous area placed under his charge, and this necessitated an incredible amount of travelling on mule-back, in ambulance and buckboard, over roads, or rather trails, which eclipsed any of the horrors portrayed by the pencil of Doré. There was great danger in all this, but Crook travelled without escort, except on very special occasions, as he did not wish to break down his men by overwork.

The Apaches had been fully as active in the neighborhood of