Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/68

 but a ! That meant more than my pen can say. All that we had carried to the higher slopes of the cañon side was saved. All that we had not been able to move was swept away, but there was nothing of value to any one excepting a mule belonging to one of the guides, which was drowned, and a lot of harness or rigging from the pack-train, which, with the hard tack, found a watery grave.

Cushing, too, would have been swept off in the current had he not been seized in the strong grasp of Sergeant Warfield and "Big Dan Miller," two of the most powerful men in the troop. The rain soaked through us all night, and we had to make the best of it until dawn, when we discovered to our great surprise and satisfaction that the stream, which had been gorged between the rocks at our camp, widened below, and this had allowed the current to expand and to slacken, dropping here and there in the valley most of the plunder which was of consequence to us, especially the hard bread.

All this meant an exasperating delay of twenty-four hours to dry our blankets upon the rocks, and to spread out our sodden food, and save as much of it as we could from mildew.

From there we made a detour over to Pinto Creek, where I may inform those of my readers who take an interest in such things, there are one or two exceptionally well-preserved cliff-dwellings, which we examined with much curiosity.

Not far from there we came upon the corn-fields of a band of Apaches, and destroyed them, eating as many of the roasting ears as we could, and feeding the rest to our stock.

Such were the military instructions of twenty and twenty-five years ago. As soldiers we had to obey, even if we could feel that these orders must have been issued under a misconception of the Indian character. The more the savage is attached to the soil by the ties of a remunerative husbandry, the more is he weaned from the evil impulses which idleness engenders. This proposition seems just as clear as that two and two make four, but some people learn quickly, and others learn slowly, and preachers, school-teachers, and military people most slowly of all.

Our presence was discovered by the Apache look-outs before we were able to effect a surprise, or, to be candid, we stumbled in upon the nook, or series of nooks, in which this planting was going on, and beyond exchanging a few shots and wounding, as