General Crook and the Fighting Apaches / Treating Also of the Part Borne by Jimmie Dunn in the days, 1871-1886, When With Soldiers and Pack-trains and Indian Scouts, but Employing the Stronger Weapons of Kindness, Firmness and Honesty, the Gray Fox Worked Hard to the End That the White Men and the Red Men in the Southwest as in the Northwest Might Better Understand One Another

by Edwin L. Sabin

The trail skirted the dizzy edge; then it veered inland, and was joined by another trail, and presently the joined trails made straight into a tremendous forest. The trees were all pines; they stood up tall and stately, and under them the ground was clean, except for the needles and the low grass and flowers. Throughout the long aisles flecked by the sun not a thing moved. It was a silent forest.

Micky and Jimmie trotted fast, their eyes upon the trail, or searching ahead. Now it was past noon. Once in a while the view opened into the great Tonto Basin; and again there was only the timber, with the serried trunks extending on every side. In such a forest, and when gazing into such a basin, a boy felt small.

About an hour or an hour and a half after noon Micky, who was just before, stopped short once more—stopped so quickly that he stood with one foot uplifted. He signed “Come,” and Jimmie came on.

“Horse tracks now, Cheemie. American horses. Mules, too. American soldiers.”

This was a larger trail; the pine needles were imprinted with many hoof marks. The horses had been ridden four abreast—yes, five and six abreast, so that the trail lay broadly. They were shod horses, which meant cavalry horses, because the Apache horses were not shod, save with buckskin boots in cactus country. No Apaches rode four or five abreast, anyway. The mule prints were smaller and rounder; and the prints cut deeper, showing that the mules had been laden: pack-mules.

Hah! Micky studied the new trail. The Tontos, too, had paused and studied it.

“These are some of the soldiers I spoke of, I think,” finally declared Micky. “They have been at Camp Apache, maybe. Anyhow, they are going away from it. Maybe the Tonto will attack them. What do you say to do, Cheemie? My heart tells me we have gone far enough. Shall we turn back, for Camp Apache?”

“I’d rather try to find the soldiers, Micky.”

“I will take you to Camp Apache. There are soldiers at Camp Apache; and the White Mountains will be good to you if the soldiers don’t want you. We will all be chi-kis-n to you.”