Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/69

 we learned afterward, a couple of the young men, did not do much at that moment; but we did catch two squaws, from whom some information was extracted.

They agreed to lead us to where there was another "rancheria" a few miles off, in another cañon over toward Tonto Creek. We found the enemy, sure enough, but in such an inaccessible position, up among lofty hills covered with a dense jungle of scrub oak, that we could do nothing beyond firing shots in reply to those directed against us, and were so unfortunate as to lose our prisoners, who darted like jack-rabbits into the brush, and were out of sight in a flash. Why did we not catch them again? Oh, well, that is something that no one could do but the gentle reader. The gentle reader generally is able to do more than the actors on the ground, and he may as well be allowed a monopoly in the present case.

We growled and grumbled a good deal at our hard luck, and made our way to the Mesquite Springs, where the ranch of Archie Mac Intosh has since been erected, and there went into camp for the night. Early the next morning we crossed the Salt River and ascended the Tonto Creek for a short distance, passing through a fertile valley, once well settled by a tribe whose stone houses now in ruins dotted the course of the stream, and whose pottery, stone axes, and other vestiges, in a condition more or less perfect, could be picked up in any quantity. We turned back, recrossed the Salt or Salado, and made a long march into the higher parts of the Sierra Apache, striking a fresh trail, and following it energetically until we had run it into the camp of a scouting party of the First Cavalry, from Camp MacDowell, under Colonel George B. Sanford, who had had a fight with these same Indians the previous day, and killed or captured most of them.

Sanford and his command treated us most kindly, and made us feel at home with them. They did not have much to offer beyond bacon and beans; but a generous, hospitable gentleman can offer these in a way that will make them taste like canvas-back and terrapin. When we left Sanford, we kept on in the direction of the Sombrero Butte and the mouth of Cherry Creek, to the east, and then headed for the extreme sources of the San Carlos River, a trifle to the south.

Here we had the good luck to come upon a village of Apaches, who abandoned all they possessed and fled to the rocks as soon