But the pack-mules were the main thought. Nothing in the way of petting and fancy trappings was too good for a pack-mule. Each mule had its name, and knew that name. Nobody was permitted to strike a mule or abuse it in any manner.
“You can abuse a dog an’ he’ll forgive you,” said old Jack. “But you mistreat a mule, an’ he’ll never forget. You can change yore clothes, but you can’t change yore smell—not to a mule!”
The bell horse or “cencero” (which is the Spanish for “bell”) had the easiest time of any of the pack-train animals. It wasn’t packed. All that the “bell” had to do was to tinkle along and set the pace, while carrying the cook. The “bell” ought to be white, because mules were supposed to be especially fond of white; the “bell” ought to be a horse, because mules respected a horse more than they did another mule; and if “he” was a white mare, as in this train, then so much the better, because mules loved white mares.
The cook rode the “bell,” and therefore was nicknamed “cencero,” himself.
Patron Jack expected to make Camp Bowie in five days easy, which would bring the pack-train and the cavalry through in good condition. The first two nights out, the mules were herded, to graze; but on the third day the road crossed the Dragoon Mountains by way of Dragoon Pass. This night the mules were tied along a stretched picket-rope, for the Dragoon Mountains were Chiricahua country, and contained Cochise’s Stronghold.
“He’s off yonder at this very minute, an’ mebbe lookin’ for us,” declared Cargador Frank Monach. “I’ll bet a cooky those hills south’ard are plumb full o’ Chiricahua.”
“That’s where they killed pore Bob Whitney, all right enough,” mused Jim O’Neill. “Down at Dragoon Springs, in the Stronghold. Yes, an’ many another man has left his scalp there. That range westward is the Whetstones, or Mustangs, where they got Cushing; and on west of the Whetstones is Davidson’s Canyon south of Tucson, where Lieutenant Stewart and Corporal Black went under. By ginger, a fellow doesn’t look out on a very pleasant view, from up here!”
From the open Dragoon Pass of the stage road the Dragoon Mountains, low and rolling but very rough, with much brush and stunted timber, extended southward to the Mexican line; and separated from them by yellow deserts, west and east and north rose other low ranges—all chosen hiding-places of the fierce Chiricahuas.
“Anyhow,” remarked Jack Long, with a sly wink, “we got a young chi-kis-n o’ theirs hyar—reg’lar member o’ the Cochise fam’ly—to talk for us; an’ if ary Chiricahua appear we’ll send him in to ’em.”
Jimmie grinned and scratched his head; whether Cochise and Geronimo would wait and listen to him, he wasn’t certain. But he’d rather like to see Nah-che and Nah-da-ste, and explain why he had run away.