The climb of the first flanks of the Sierra Madre was begun at daylight. The trail that led out of the canyon was littered with plunder—torn letters, Mexican dresses, scattered flour, and beef carcasses. It was so steep that several of the mules fell off, and landed one hundred feet below, in a canyon. But they were not hurt.
The Chiricahua sign became more plentiful. “Peaches” said that Geronimo’s real stronghold was still several days’ march before, but that this was as far as the Mexican soldiers ever had got. The Chiricahuas had ambushed them and driven them back.
To-night everybody except the scouts was very tired. Jimmie ached from head to foot; the job of forcing the mules on was the hardest work of all.
“Come, Cheemie,” invited Micky. “You come with me and you will see big medicine made.”
Jimmie groaned, and hobbled after Micky Free.
What with chasing deer and turkeys and rabbits, to eat, and hunting the Chiricahuas, the scouts had been having a great time. They had never been too tired to dance and yarn; to-night their medicine-men were to find the Chiricahuas for them.
The officers messed with the packers and scouts; it was all one family. The general and Captain Bourke had joined the Monach mess, where Alchisé and other principal scouts ate, too. So the general and the captain were admitted to the circle of the medicine-making.
The chief medicine-man lay in a trance while the lesser medicine-men squatted around him and sang. Soon he thumped his chest and spoke, telling his dream.
“Keet,” the Apache boy who carried the medicine things and was in training for a medicine-man, himself, translated for the general and Captain Bourke.