Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/510

 line. From Fort Bowie, Arizona, to the "Contrabandista" (Smuggler) Springs, in Sonora, is eighty-four miles, following roads and trails; the lofty mountain ranges are very much broken, and the country is decidedly rough except along the road. There are a number of excellent ranchos—that of the Chiricahua Cattle Company, twenty-five miles out from Bowie; that of the same company on Whitewood Creek, where we saw droves of fat beeves lazily browsing under the shady foliage of oak trees; and Joyce's, or Frank Leslie's, where we found Lieutenant Taylor and a small detachment of Indian scouts.

The next morning at an early hour we started and drove first to the camp of Captain Allan Smith, Fourth Cavalry, with whom were Lieutenant Erwin and Surgeon Fisher. Captain Smith was living in an adobe hut, upon whose fireplace he had drawn and painted, with no unskilled hand, pictures, grave and comic, which imparted an air of civilization to his otherwise uncouth surrounding. Mr. Thomas Moore had preceded General Crook with a pack-train, and with him were "Alchise," "Ka-e-ten-na," a couple of old Chiricahua squaws sent down with all the latest gossip from the women prisoners at Bowie, Antonio Besias and Montoya (the interpreters), and Mr. Strauss, Mayor of Tucson. All these moved forward towards the "Contrabandista" Springs. At the last moment of our stay a photographer, named Fly, from Tombstone, asked permission for himself and his assistant—Mr. Chase—to follow along in the wake of the column; and still another addition, and a very welcome one, was made in the person of José Maria, another Spanish-Apache interpreter, for whom General Crook had sent on account of his perfect familiarity with the language of the Chiricahuas.

San Bernardino Springs lie twelve miles from Silver Springs, and had been occupied by a cattleman named Slaughter, since General Crook had made his expedition into the Sierra Madre. Here I saw a dozen or more quite large mortars of granite, of aboriginal manufacture, used for mashing acorns and other edible nuts; the same kind of household implements are or were to be found in the Green Valley in the northern part of Arizona, and were also used for this same purpose. We left the wheeled conveyances and mounted mules saddled and in waiting, and rode over to the "Contrabandista," three miles across the boundary. Before going to bed that night, General Crook showed "Ka-e