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straight trunks generally from twelve to eighteen inches thick, covered from top to bottom with sharp needles from two to three inches long. Another curious variety is one that grows a bunch of straight, dry sticks, like a dozen fish poles set in the ground together. Not a leaf, blossom, or sign of life is on them at this season of the year-unless we mention the long needles or spines with which each pole is plentifully supplied. There is certainly life in them, if you happen to let one strike your leg as it hangs along the trail.

Then there are a hundred different shapes of the "nigger head" cactus, a round green ball, sometimes two or three in a bunch, from the size of a base ball up to that of a bushel basket. The little fellows of this variety are regular traps for the careless, and many a weary traveler has thrown himself down on a grassy spot, only to find that the cactus was there before him and ready for business.

There are also many varieties of the yucca, or as it is more generally called, the "bayonet plant," whose leaves make excellent paper, and whose roots the Indians and Mexicans use for soap; it makes a lather equal to the finest soap.

Almost at the top of the cañon can be seen a little stone fort, erected some years ago by a Lieutenant Fisher of the Fifth United States Cavalry who with three or four men was cornered here by a band of Apaches. They hastily built this little circular breastwork of stones, from behind which they fought until help came. The soldiers named it Fort Fisher and the name will probably always remain.

At the summit we are some thirty miles from the Gila and about 4,000 feet above it. The trail now winds along through a heavy pine forest for some twenty miles. The military telegraph line, which is about the only piece of civilization that Apache can boast of, runs along the trail, strung mainly on the The Indians give great trouble to

trees.

the government by pulling down this line. They throw a lariat over the wire and pull it from the supports and then hammer it in two between rocks, frequently dragging it

away off the trail.

away off the trail. Sometimes they tie the wire across the trail from tree to tree at such a height as will sweep a horseman from his seat. The writer experienced the trick once, and several others have been victims to this peculiar style of Apache humor. Once the line was cut and the break hunted after, for over two weeks. Over and over again did the repair man go over the line but without finding the break. Finally however, after the point had been located by testing, a careful hunt discovered the wire cut close to an insulator in a big oak tree and tied to the bracket with a piece of rawhide, the leaves and branches hiding the thong very cleverly.

At Black River the trail goes down fully two thousand feet to the water. What a climb it is, too, in this high, thin air! and from one top to the other seems scarcely a stone's throw, yet a long hour is used in going down and up.

Down in the bottom of the cañon lies a sample of Interior Department management. It is a grist mill with turbine wheel all 'complete or rather it was once. Years ago, when the nearest railway was at least one thousand miles from here, some bright Indian agent conceived the idea of setting up a mill for the Indians to grind their grain. Black River, with its swift strong current, offered a fine site, and so this mill was hauled over the desert and up the mountain at a cost that must have about equaled its weight in dollars, and deposited here. A change of agents came and the costly article was left were it was, never to be utilized. At that time a fair sized coffee mill would have ground all the grain the whole nation. raised.

At the top of the hill as we are resting after our long steep climb, the call of an old turkey gobbler is heard near, answered by the "chirp, chirp" of his flock; and almost be

fore we can get our guns from the saddle, a flock of fifteen or twenty wild turkeys, led by a majestic gobbler, come feeding down the hillside, wholly unconscious of our presence. Two fall at the first shot, and three more are killed on the wing as they sail, in their long peculiar flight, clear across the cañon into the thick pines on the opposite side.

Surely there is no nobler game than the wild turkey.

A few miles from this we pass by the roadside seven graves, three soldiers and four citizens, killed by Apaches in September '81. They were in a wagon and the Indians shot down their horses, forcing them to leave it and take to the trees. After they were killed the wagon was burned. The iron work still lies there, a mournful relic. A mile or two further on we pass another grave, that of a courier with despatches, who was killed the next day after the seven.

Fort Apache lies in a beautiful valley at the junction of the two forks of the White River a rushing, rollicking trout stream of the purest water. The valley is completely circled by mountains, whose sides are thickly clothed with pine, cedar, and juniper. It is generally open, but dotted here and there with clumps of cedar or pine. Everywhere, all over the valley, are the rude huts or camps of the Indians. These around here are the White Mountain Apaches. They are independent of the agent and of government aid, according to the agreement when the reservation was laid out. They dreaded to go to San Carlos and so agreed never to ask aid from the government; in return for which the government lets them live here in their own wild mountains. They are looked after and kept in order by the commanding officer of the post. The government buys their corn from them and also all the hay for the post, some two thousand tons yearly; and this, together with the fine hunting, gives them a very fair living. They certainly are self-supporting in the fullest sense of the word. They farm all along both VOL. IX.-12.

forks of the White River and of all the streams in this vicinity. The government occasionally helps them in digging their acequias or irrigating ditches, where they find rock, and blasting becomes necessary.

Haying season is their harvest and the vicinity of the hay corrals and scales offers a most animated spectacle. They pack the hay in every way—on their backs, on ponies, and on burros. The hay is cut, generally, with sickles or knives, and often with the heavy Mexican hoe. Enough is gathered to make a bundle of sixty or seventy-five pounds, which is bound with the tough fibres of the yucca. Four or five of these bundles are tied on the burro's back; and with another on her own back, and ofttimes a baby on top of it, the squaw drives her burro in to the post, where the hay is weighed and a check given her for the number of pounds, which is paid upon presentation at the post quartermaster's office. As high as two hundred pounds is often brought in on a squaw's back, and a burro will be loaded with three or four hundred more.

The

With two or three hundred squaws talking, laughing, and shouting around the scales, each trying to get her load weighed first, and always accusing the weigher of cheating, the scene is a novel one. cry of cheating is generally raised because they are up to such tricks themselves. Huge stones, green logs, and all sorts of articles are found in their bundles to make them weigh more. As each bundle is weighed, a man standing beside the scales takes it off, cuts the binding, and opens it to prevent this cheating; and oh, what a shout goes up when some one is caught! Her bundle is confiscated, and she sneaks off amid the jeers and jokes of all the rest, a sadder and wiser Apache.

Fort Apache is built like all frontier military posts simply a place for housing and feeding the troops. The large parade with the stars and stripes in the centre, is faced at one end by the hospital, a large, hand

some adobe building, and the other end by the different offices and guard house. On each side stand the quarters; on the north the officers', on the south the men's. The buildings are of all kinds--stone, adobe, log, and lumber.

Although Apache is the most isolated post in the Territory, it is the most coveted by army people for a station; its fine climate, beautiful surroundings, and splendid hunting and fishing, being more than an offset to its isolation.

Few people have a fair conception of the amount of work the United States army performs on the frontier. The general idea is that both officers and men do nothing from one year's end to the other but drink, gamble, and sleep, wear fine clothes, and have a general good time. The man who enters the United States army, the cavalry branch especially, will find that he works as hard as any day laborer who ever lived, and often harder. Almost the entire work of improvement falls on the troops, and this, with constant field service, escorts, and scouting, keeps them continually on the go.

Apache boasts a steam saw-mill and a fine system of water-works, water being forced from the river to a high hill back of the post, and from a reservoir there down to and all over, the garrison.

A two days' trip takes us westward, into the edge of the wonderful, picturesque Tonto Basin, on Cibicu Creek, where, on that fatal day in August, '81, the Indian scouts turned on the troops under General E. A. Carr, of the Sixth Cavalry, and killed Captain Hentig-as brave an officer and noble man as ever drew a sabre-and six men. Their bodies were all removed to the post afterwards, and only the rough head boards, made from ration boxes, with the names burned in with red hot irons, lying about, mark the spot where the battle took place. These valleys here are perfect garden spots. The Indians raise wonderful crops of corn, melons, and beans.

Coming back to Apache we see the place on the trail as it turns around a mountain, where on the night of the Cibicu fight, as the command was retreating back to the post, a pack-mule laden with ammunition, lost its footing and rolled down the cliff, a full thousand feet. Of course in the darkness and confusion nothing could be done, and the Indians, following up the command, found it the next morning; and doubtless used some of the cartridges in the attack on the fort the day after.

A

A détour of a few miles takes us to a salt spring which is really the head of the famous Salt Creek. The spring is some twenty feet wide, and on all sides the pure, white salt is piled up in layers a foot thick. large stream runs from the spring into Cedar Creek, turning the pure creek water into a regular ocean brine. A few miles below, the Salt River proper is formed; but if any of those numerous persons who have "gone up Salt River "have reached its head, they certainly should be in the vicinity of this spring.

We return to the post just in time to see three troops of cavalry preparing to take the field in response to a telegram announcing a hostile raid to the southeast. What a busy scene! Orderlies flying around, horses being saddled, ammunition distributed, rations packed up, and everything in apparent confusion-and yet a confusion with a system, for in less than three hours from the first order, the command is drawn up on the parade for inspection.

Everything looks meant for service. Twothirds of the men wear large white sombreros; buckskin pants and shirts are frequent; hardly an officer wears anything to show his rank, the sabre being only for garrison use; each officer now carries a carbine and revolver, like the men, for Indians must be fought almost man to man, and in such places every shot counts.

The men are drawn up in a long line. At the right are a dozen Indian scouts squat

ting around, each armed with a long rifle. They are invaluable as scouts, trailers, and couriers, and always travel on foot. In their midst stands the guide and interpreter, a tall, weather-beaten man, a typical frontiersman, who has been on such duty for years and years.

Back of all, the packers vainly try to keep the pack-train of about fifty mules in some sort of order. Each mule has had his load tightly cinched and lashed on, and the consequent squeezing they are undergoing makes them uneasy and vicious. One would hardly think there could be bedding, rations, and supplies for such a number of men in so small a space, but then no feather beds are taken, and an army field ration isn't so very bulky.

Every mule is given his load--usually not over two hundred pounds, except in emergencies. It is divided as nearly as possible into two equal packs and is lashed on to the large aparejo—a peculiar style of Spanish pack rig-by the famous "diamond hitch." It is wonderful how rapidly a well-trained. crew will pack up a lot of stuff, and still more wonderful is the stuff that can be packed. In fact there is hardly anything, however clumsy or awkward to handle, that a pack train cannot carry, providing, of course, it comes within the limit of weight. The writer has seen everything, from a cookstove and Saratoga trunk to a bedstead, sent over to the pack corral," and nothing ever came back; although I remember that the mule with the bedstead ran against a tree with the long side pieces, going down a steep trail, and rolled some five or six hundred feet down, much to the damage of the bedstead, but it never hurt the mule. Another time a mule loaded with three hundred pounds of bacon in great slabs lost his footing and rolled down a hill some two hundred feet, and finally pitched off over a cliff straight down fifty feet, alighting on his back in a creek below. When the lashings were cut the mule rolled over, struggled to his feet, and began to drink, as if such things

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were of everyday Occurrence in his family. As an Irish orderly remarked:

66

Well, bedad, if that mule didn't save his bacon, his bacon surely saved him."

The packers are generally Mexicans, and always citizens, being employed by the quartermaster's department. They are

paid from $50 per month and rations, for common packers, up to $125 a month for the packmaster; but I will venture the statement that a packer in an army train comes about as near earning his $50 every month as any living mortal, for harder and more disagreeable work cannot be imagined, especially in cold or wet weather.

Having been inspected, the command moves off, the scouts in the lead, the surgeon and commanding officer next, and by twos or in single file, as the trail permits, the rest of the command. Following them comes the pack train led by an old bell mare, and the rear is brought up by the rear guard of about eight men.

And here we bid adieu to fair Apache land. The news of the outbreak brings our trip to a close. It will not be safe, we are told, to travel over the reservation, and although we are longing for a hunt up in the high mountains where the elk are, we do not consider it worth risking our scalps for ; and instead of returning by way of Camp Thomas, over what is now a hostile country, we leave the post and strike northward toward the Atlantic and Pacific road, some one hundred miles distant.

Our trip is an uneventful and pleasant one. We spend a day in "Snowflake," a Mormon settlement in the midst of green fields a regular oasis in the desert-where we are tempted to stay and study these people in their homes. At Holbrook, a thriv ing little town on the railroad, we feel ourselves once more in civilization, or at least on its outskirts. This is a "cow" town, the "wild and woolly" cowboy being here found in all his glory. Thousands of cattle are ranging over the country near here, and

nothing but cows, brands, ranches, and stock is talked of.

our Mexican packer, who goes back alone, and as we give him a hearty hand-shake on

We sell our saddle ponies, settle up with leaving, we say to him: "Adios, amigo."

TELL ME, DEAR BIRD.

In the warm twilight where I mused there came
A bird of unknown race with breast of flame.

Tell me dear bird, O bird with breast of flame,
I conjure thee e'en by his sacred name,
How may I lure and win Love to my side?—
There is no lure for love; in patience bide,
And if he cometh not await him still.
Love cometh only when and where he will.

But when he cometh, bird with breast of flame,
Teach me his roving feet to bind and tame.—
Many have sought to bind him, but in vain,
He will not brook nor gold nor silken chain.
If he is held, Love languishes and dies,
And 'tis not Love if, free to stay, he flies.

Tell me dear bird, O bird with breast of flame,
When true Love comes how may I know his name?
What are the golden words upon his tongue?
What message sweeter than a seraph's song?—
Love hath no shibboleth, and where are words
For the enraptured songs of summer birds?

Tell me dear bird, O) bird with heart of flame,
The deepest sense and meaning of thy name.—
Two all-sufficing souls for woe or bliss;
But what they do, or what their converse is,

Love only knows; they walk where none may see,
Wrapped in the shades of a sweet mystery.

E. L. Huggins.

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