Saddle and Mocassin

by Francis Francis

Thus talking we had ridden by the empty picket lines, and little shelter tents, which marked the quarters of the cavalry, passed through the neatly arranged trappings and lines of the pack-train, and now pulled up before the three headquarters tents. A pleasant shout of recognition greeted Huse's summons, and the subject of our conversation appeared.

The last man in the world that you would have expected to see, were you accustomed to draw portraits in imagination, and drew in this instance solely influenced by the Lieutenant's record! The hero of a score of Indian fights was slightly built and fair, with pleasant blue eyes, and a voice as gentle as a woman's, with one of those delicate complexions that the sun cannot tan, a singularly winning smile, and an almost caressing gentleness of manner.

It was nearly lunch-time, so we lounged round the tent in the shade, and smoked and chatted with our host, and the other officers of his party, until it was ready. Apache warfare, and the stratagems which these ingenious warriors employ when pushed, furnished an inexhaustible theme of conversation.

Amongst other tricks—new to me, though not so, possibly, to my reader—is one which might be used upon occasion in civilised skirmishing. Hard pressed, and anxious to divert their pursuers' attention to a false scent, the Apaches have been known to detach men to light small dry wood fires on their flanks, and so place cartridges under them, that the latter will explode at intervals in representation of a fusillade. Lunch over, we strolled round the camp. This was situated in a picturesque glen. Rocky hills towered above us, but we were down amidst grassy nooks, screens of willow bush, and groves of sycamore and cotton-wood trees.

"Come and see the way that the men bake in our army," said Day, after we had witnessed the distribution of rations to the scouts, and experienced some amusement from the haggling that ensued on the short measures of flour which "Rowdy Jack," one of their fellow-men, served out;—"come and see the way that the men bake in our army, it will interest you. It is simpler than the means your fellows employ, over the water. There is a little cooking stove, used in our service, which I want to show you, too."

We repaired to the cavalry camp, and found the process of baking in operation. In a small trench, about fifteen inches broad, a foot deep, and seven or eight feet long, half-a-dozen flat-bottomed tin bowls or basins, containing the dough, were placed. These were covered by inverted bowls of a similar material and shape. The trench was then partly filled with wood ashes (from a neighbouring fire), mixed with sand to regulate the heat and prevent the dough burning, a few ashes were scattered on the tops of the inverted bowls, and the make-shift oven was complete. A dozen or two of these tins could be packed one inside the other; they weighed little, and occupied but little space, whilst the bread which could be baked by their means was excellent.

The stove was a small, flat-topped cooking stove of sheet-iron, which formed an easy load for one mule. In a country where wood was scarce, it would be invaluable, for with a most trifling consumption of fuel, it cooked, and cooked rapidly, a meal for a whole company. Both these expedients are worth the notice of English officers. À propos of "camp fixings," I may mention here an idea which has often occurred to me for a camp table—always an awkward and unpackable article. Let the top of the table be made on the principle of Tunbridge Wells tea-kettle holders, or of laths of wood riveted on to a canvas back. Cross pieces, turning on a screw, such as serve to hold the back of a drawing-board in its frame, would keep the top flat when unrolled, and when not in use, it might be wrapped round the legs, and would pack with ease.

Quitting the cavalry quarters, we proceeded to those of the scouts. They also were supplied with shelter tents, which they had pitched face to face, in couples, close together, a wood fire smouldering between them, and a brush-wood fence snugly surrounding them. No order seemed to regulate their choice of site. They had located themselves wherever there was a crack or inequality in the broken valley bottom, a bay in the banks of the stream, or a nook formed by the fallen trunks of great trees, and their camp was thus scattered over a considerable area of ground.

For the most part these Apaches were drawn from the White Mountain tribe, between which and the Chiricauas a deadly feud existed. Their physique was magnificent. Square-shouldered, lean, and supple types of feline humanity, six feet in stature were not uncommon amongst them, although a lower standard of height naturally ruled. They were handsome, too, in a Mephistophelean style. One group that I saw is photographed on my memory with peculiar vividness.

The trunk of a giant sycamore had fallen, and, stripped by time of its foliage, even of its bark, and all but its larger branches—reduced, in fact, to a white skeleton—projected above the stream. Under the bank (six or eight feet high at this point), Stove-pipe, the native chief of the scouts, had pitched his tent. We visited him, and whilst we were conversing together a score of his men collected about us. Some seated themselves on drift-wood logs, others on boulders, some lounged with their backs against the fallen sycamore, one leant forward with his arms on the trunk, another, seated amidst the branches, dangled his legs over the pebbly stream, which caught their swaying reflection, and near him, a splendid panther-like brute had stretched himself at full length on the naked bark, and leaning on his elbow, gazed lazily at us. All faced us, and the attitude of each one was perfect in its physical ease and unstudied repose. A striking study of heads, too, was afforded by these bronze-visaged warriors, with their black snaky locks (bound by the red handkerchief, their distinguishing badge), their half-closed, volcanic orbs, and scornful features, lit by chill smiles, and gleams of strange intelligence. Savages are always interesting as links with the past—interesting as dusky shadows that linger to tell us of a phase in the history of man obscured now in the twilight of ages—interesting as belated wayfarers in the race of human development which they will never live to finish.