“Adios, amigo,” bade Maria, to Jimmie. “You will have good luck. The medicine says so, and Pa-na-yo-tish-n will lead Crook straight. But it will be a long march, maybe two hundred miles.”
“Aren’t you going, Maria?”
“No. I stay, because I know all this country.”
It did not look like a very great force, after all, which at sunrise of May 1, this 1883, crossed the border to find Geronimo. There were more Indians than soldiers—one hundred and ninety-three of them, White Mountains, Tontos, Yavapais, Apache-Yumas and some of the Taza friendly Chiricahuas.
Captain Crawford, of the Third Cavalry, commanded them. He had as his assistants Lieutenant George Gatewood and Lieutenant W. W. Forsythe, of the Sixth, and Lieutenant James O. Mackay, of the Third.
The forty cavalrymen of the Sixth (less than half a company) were commanded by Major Adna R. Chaffee and Lieutenant Frank West.
The general’s staff was Captain Bourke, and Lieutenant G. J. Febiger of the Engineers. Doctor Andrews was surgeon. Archie MacIntosh and Al Sieber were chief scouts. Micky, and old Severiano the Mexican who had been brought up by the Apaches, and Packer Sam Bowman were interpreters.
The pack-masters of the five pack-trains were Frank Monach, Charley Hopkins, of Tucson, “Long Jim” Cook and “Short Jim” Cook, and George Stanfield.
“One blanket and forty rounds of ammunition to each man,” were the orders. The mules carried additional ammunition and sixty days’ rations of hard-tack, coffee and bacon. Everybody was well armed with the Springfield forty-fives, and Colt’s revolvers; even the packers had carbines and pistols.