Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/196

 it. Thus, at Bowers' Ranch on the Agua Fria, eighteen miles northeast from Prescott, one sits down to his supper in a room which once formed part of a prehistoric dwelling; and the same thing may be said of Wales Arnold's, over near Montezuma's Wells, where many of the stones used in the masonry came from the pueblo ruins close at hand.

Having visited the northern line of his department, General Crook gave all his attention to the question of supplies; everything consumed in the department, at that date, had to be freighted at great expense from San Francisco, first by steamship around Cape San Lucas to the mouth of the Rio Colorado, then up the river in small steamers as far as Ehrenburg and Fort Mojave, and the remainder of the distance—two hundred miles—by heavy teams. To a very considerable extent, these supplies were distributed from post to post by pack-trains, a proceeding which evoked the liveliest remonstrances from the contractors interested in the business of hauling freight, but their complaints availed them nothing. Crook foresaw the demands that the near future would surely make upon his pack-trains, which he could by no surer method keep in the highest discipline and efficiency than by having them constantly on the move from post to post carrying supplies. The mules became hardened, the packers made more skilful in the use of all the "hitches"—the "Diamond" and others—constituting the mysteries of their calling, and the detachments sent along as escorts were constantly learning something new about the country as well as how to care for themselves and animals.

Sixty-two miles from Prescott to the southwest lay the sickly and dismal post of Camp Date creek, on the creek of the same name. Here were congregated about one thousand of the band known as the Apache-Yumas, with a sprinkling of Apache-Mojaves, tribes allied to the Mojaves on the Colorado, and to the Hualpais, but differing from them in disposition, as the Date Creek people were not all anxious for peace, but would now and then send small parties of their young men to raid and steal from the puny settlements like Wickenburg. The culmination of the series was the "Loring" or "Wickenburg" massacre, so-called from the talented young scientist, Loring, a member of the Wheeler surveying expedition, who, with his companions—a stage-load—was brutally murdered not far from Wickenburg;