Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/648

640 assured me every one of the band should come in if I would remain a short time; but the terms of the treaty embarrassed me greatly, and being in that rough region, with rations rapidly disappearing, there being between three and four hundred Chiricahuas to feed, I was compelled to return.

"We found six Mexican captives,—five women and one child,—taken in Chihuahua early in May. They are now with the command. These women say they were captured near the Mexican Central Railroad, at a place called Carmen. They further state that when the Chiricahuas discovered that the Apache scouts were in the country they became greatly alarmed, and abandoned on the trail the three hundred head of cattle they were driving away from points in Western Chihuahua. The cattle were afterward picked up and driven off by a body of Mexicans.

"We marched back as rapidly as the condition of the stock and the strength of the women and children would permit. We found the country depopulated for a distance of one hundred miles from the Apache stronghold. The Chiricahuas insist that they have always lived in the Sierra Madre, and that even when the main body went on the reservation some remained behind in the mountains. Of those who now go out, there are a number who state that they have never been on the reservation. I have strong hopes of being able to clean the mountains of the last of these.

"There are now with us Loco and Nana, who were so often reported killed, and the families of other prominent chiefs. I saw no Mexican troops, and after leaving the settlements in Northeast Sonora did not see a Mexican other than the captives rescued. "GEORGE CROOK,

The enthusiasm of the Border country knew no bounds, as the travel-worn heroes emerged from the unknown region, and General Crook was hailed as the savior of the Southwest. A banquet was given him in Tucson, and the long-repressed feelings of the inhabitants found vent in adulatory addresses. Before the enthusiasm had well cooled, ugly rumors began to creep out; which it may seem ungenerous in me even to mention. His enemies claimed that he had not only committed a foolhardy thing, in going into the stronghold of the Apaches with a force of Indian scouts in full sympathy with them, outnumbering the