Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/211

 the Black River and the mouth of the San Carlos, the start being made at six o'clock one day, and ending at eight o'clock the next morning, a total of twenty-six hours of marching and climbing. Every one in the command was pretty well tired out, and glad to throw himself down with head on saddle, just as soon as horses and mules could be lariated on grass and pickets established, but General Crook took his shot-gun and followed up the Gila a mile or two, and got a fine mess of reed birds for our breakfast. It was this insensibility to fatigue, coupled with a contempt for danger, or rather with a skill in evading all traps that might be set for him, which won for Crook the admiration of all who served with him; there was no private soldier, no packer, no teamster, who could "down the ole man" in any work, or outlast him on a march or a climb over the rugged peaks of Arizona; they knew that, and they also knew that in the hour of danger Crook would be found on the skirmish line, and not in the telegraph office.

At old Camp Grant, the operations of the campaign began in earnest; in two or three days the troops at that post were ready to move out under command of Major Brown, of the Fifth Cavalry, and the general plan of the campaign unfolded itself. It was to make a clean sweep of the Tonto Basin, the region in which the hostiles had always been so successful in eluding and defying the troops, and this sweep was to be made by a number of converging columns, each able to look out for itself, each provided with a force of Indian scouts, each followed by a pack-train with all needful supplies, and each led by officers physically able to go almost anywhere. After the centre of the Basin had been reached, if there should be no decisive action in the meantime, these commands were to turn back and break out in different directions, scouring the country, so that no nook or corner should be left unexamined. The posts were stripped of the last available officer and man, the expectation being that, by closely pursuing the enemy, but little leisure would be left him for making raids upon our settlements, either military or civil, and that the constant movements of the various detachments would always bring some within helping distance of beleaguered stations.

General Crook kept at the front, moving from point to point, along the whole periphery, and exercising complete personal supervision of the details, but leaving the movements from each post under the control of the officers selected for the work.