“He said to have you report to Lieutenant Bourke, and when we got to Grant you would be shown fighting.”
“That is good,” approved Micky. “I don’t care anything about your Lieutenant Bourke, but the general has promised me fighting and I like him. I will go to Grant, and then we will chase the Tonto with the general, Cheemie; you and I.”
So saying, Micky strolled away, to eat with Alchisé. Throughout the remainder of the march to Camp Grant he did about as he pleased: sometimes he rode in advance, with Alchisé and Archie MacIntosh; and sometimes he rode with Jimmie, at the rear; and sometimes he vanished, to explore on his own hook. But he always turned up at meal times!
With his ragged clothes, and his red head and his smudgy reddish upper lip and his one bright blue eye, Micky was a privileged character.
Camp Grant was reached exactly on time, and for the next three days of this first week in November it was a busy place. Dispatch bearers came and went; Chief Packer Tom Moore was here, from Whipple; one hundred White Mountain scouts arrived, under Chief Es-qui-nos-quiz-n or Big Mouth; Pima and Maricopa chiefs were waiting, to talk with “Cluke” and find out what he wanted; word came that the Hualpais were ready, for they also hated the Apaches, as the Pimas and Maricopas did. But Chief Es-kim-en-zin refused to let any of his young men enlist; the Arivaipas had friends among the outlaw Pinals who ranged near the Tonto Basin.
Every officer and enlisted man and pack-mule that could be spared from the various posts, and every Indian who could be trusted off the reservations, was called into service. Jimmie felt certain that he ought to be included; he had done his level best, on the trip around by Bowie and Apache—nobody had worked harder. So he anxiously consulted Joe Felmer.
“Wall, you see it’s this way,” said Joe: “I’m goin’ as scout—Archie MacIntosh, Tony Besias, an’ me, ’long with the Major Brown column. That keeps us in advance, an’ ’twon’t be any place for a boy. This is war. So you stick ’round old Jack; he’ll boss the pack-train, an’ I happen to know that he thinks purty well o’ you. He says you tended strictly to bus’ness, an’ obeyed orders.”
Jimmie looked up Patron Jack.
“Shore thing, muchacho,” answered Jack. “I told you I’d make a fust-class packer of you, an’ I will. You fetch yore war-bag an’ fall in ready to help the cook’ an’ by the time we’re out o’ the Tonto Basin with old Chuntz’s scalp mebbe you’ll get a second-class ratin’.”
Hurrah! It was only proper, too, for Chief Chuntz had murdered little Francisco, and had not little Francisco been his, Jimmie’s, partner? Everybody at Grant was particularly eager to kill or capture Chuntz.