Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/712

568 horse by being assisted, but had to be very careful and only ride a short distance, and very slow at that. The third day on our trip from the fort George reported having seen the trail of quite a large band of Indians traveling westward almost parallel with the road, but said they had passed about two days before. I asked the Lieutenant to give me his camping places that night and the next one, which he did. I then told George to select four men from the scout force, take two days' rations and see if he could run down the Indians and to telegraph me when they changed their course or when he had them located.

George was on their trail before noon and before sunset he had them located, only a short distance from the place where I had been wounded the year before. I got a dispatch from him just as I was ready to turn in for the night, and by one o'clock I received another dispatch stating that there were about eighty in the band, and well armed, and among them about twenty squaws and their children. This was something we had never seen among the Apaches before. Lieut. Jackson asked my opinion of their having their families with them. I told him I thought they must be on their way to Sonora to trade, as at that time the Apaches had never traded but very little with the whites.

They might be out for a hunt, but it was not customary when on such a trip to have their families with them. Upon the receipt of the second dispatch from George, Lieut. Jackson started out with three companies of cavalry, and arrived at the spot near daybreak. I was told afterwards that George had been crawling around