Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/57

 a mile or two more will bring you to a stream of very respectable dimensions, flowing over rocky boulders of good size, between towering walls which screen from the sun, and amid scenery which is picturesque, romantic, and awe-inspiring. The raiders left the cañon of the Aravaypa at its most precipitous part, not far from the gypsum out-crop, and made a straight shoot for the mouth of the San Carlos. This, however, was only a blind, and inside of three miles there was no trail left, certainly not going in the direction of Mount Turnbull.

Manuel Duran was not at all worried; he was an Apache himself, and none of the tricks of the trade had the slightest effect upon his equanimity. He looked over the ground carefully. Ah! here is a stone which has been overturned in its place, and here some one has cut that branch of mesquite; and here—look! we have it, the shod-hoof track of one of Israel's mules! There is nothing the matter at all. The Apaches have merely scattered and turned, and instead of going toward the junction of the Gila and the San Carlos, have bent to the west and started straight for the mouth of the San Pedro, going down by the head of Deer Creek, and over to the Rock Creek, which rises in the "Dos Narices" Mountain, not twelve miles from Grant itself. Patient search, watching every blade of grass, every stone or bush, and marching constantly, took the command to the mouth of the San Pedro, across the Gila, up to the head of the Disappointment Creek, in the Mescal Mountains, and over into the foot-hills of the Pinal—and not into the foot-hills merely, but right across the range at its highest point.

The Apaches were evidently a trifle nervous, and wanted to make as big a circuit as possible to bewilder pursuers; but all their dodges were vain. From the top of the Pinal a smoke was detected rising in the valley to the north and east, and shortly afterward the evidence that a party of squaws and children, laden with steamed mescal, had joined the raiders, and no doubt were to remain with them until they got home, if they were not already home.

Cushing would hardly wait till the sun had hidden behind the Superstition Mountains or the Matitzal before he gave the order to move on. Manuel was more prudent, and not inclined to risk anything by undue haste.

He would wait all night before he would risk disappointment in