On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

Packers were always careful not to let any stray colts in among the mules, because they would set the mules crazy. This idea is not an absurd one, as I can testify from my personal observation. The mules are so anxious to play with young colts that they will do nothing else; and, being stronger than the youngster, will often injure it by crowding up against it. The old mules of a train know their business perfectly well. They need no one to show them where their place is when the evening’s “feed” is to be apportioned on the canvas, and in every way deport themselves as sedate, prim, well-behaved members of society, from whom all vestiges of the frivolities of youth have been eradicated. They never wander far from the sound of the bell, and give no trouble to the packers “on herd.”

But a far different story must be told of the inexperienced, skittish young mule, fresh from the blue grass of Missouri or Nebraska. He is the source of more profanity than he is worth, and were it not that the Recording Angel understands the aggravation in the case, he would have his hands full in entering all the “cuss words” to which the green pack-mule has given rise. He will not mind the bell, will wander away from his comrades on herd, and in sundry and divers ways demonstrates the perversity of his nature. To contravene his maliciousness, it is necessary to mark him in such a manner that every packer will see at a glance that he is a new arrival, and thereupon set to work to drive him back to his proper place in his own herd. The most certain, as it is the most convenient way to effect this, is by neatly roaching his mane and shaving his tail so that nothing is left but a pencil or tassel of hair at the extreme end. He is now known as a “shave-tail,” and everybody can recognize him at first sight. His sedate and well-trained comrade is called a “bell-sharp.”

These terms, in frontier sarcasm, have been transferred to officers of the army, who, in the parlance of the packers, are known as “bell-sharps” and “shave-tails” respectively; the former being the old captain or field-officer of many “fogies,” who knows too much to be wasting his energies in needless excursions about the country, and the latter, the youngster fresh from his studies on the Hudson, who fondly imagines he knows it all, and is not above having people know that he does. He is a “shave-tail”—all elegance of uniform, spick-span new, well groomed, and without sense enough to come in for “feed” when the bell rings. On the plains these two classes of very excellent gentlemen used to be termed “coffee-coolers” and “goslings.”

There are few more animated sights than a pack-train at the moment of feeding and grooming the mules. The care shown equals almost that given to the average baby, and the dumb animals seem to respond to all attentions. General Crook kept himself posted as to what was done to every mule, and, as a result, had the satisfaction of seeing his trains carrying a net average of three hundred and twenty pounds to the mule, while a pamphlet issued by the Government had explicitly stated that the highest average should not exceed one hundred and seventy-five. So that, viewed in the most sordid light, the care which General Crook bestowed upon his trains yielded wonderful results. Not a day passed that General Crook did not pass from one to two hours in personal inspection of the workings of his trains, and he has often since told me that he felt then the great responsibility of having his transportation in the most perfect order, because so much was to be demanded of it.

The packers themselves were an interesting study, drawn as they were from the four corners of the earth, although the major portion, as was to be expected, was of Spanish-American origin. Not an evening passed on this trip across the mountains of the Mogollon Range that Crook did not quietly take a seat close to the camp-fire of some of the packers, and listen intently to their “reminiscences” of early mining days in California or “up on the Frazer in British Columbia.” “Hank ’n Yank,” Tom Moore, Jim O’Neill, Charlie Hopkins, Jack Long, Long Jim Cook, and others, were “forty-niners,” and well able to discuss the most exciting times known to the new Pactolus, with its accompanying trying days of the vigilance committee and other episodes of equal interest. These were “men” in the truest sense of the term; they had faced all perils, endured all privations, and conquered in a manly way, which is the one unfailing test of greatness in human nature. Some of the narratives were mirth-provoking beyond my powers of repetition, and for General Crook they formed an unfailing source of quiet amusement whenever a chance offered to listen to them as told by the packers.

One of our men—I have forgotten to mention him sooner—was Johnnie Hart, a very quiet and reserved person, with a great amount of force, to be shown when needed. There was little of either the United States or Mexico over which he had not wandered as a mining “prospector,” delving for metals, precious or non-precious. Bad luck overtook him in Sonora just about when that country was the scene of the liveliest kind of a time between the French and the native Mexicans, and while the hostile factions of the Gandaras and the Pesquieras were doing their best to destroy what little the rapacity of the Gallic invaders left intact. Johnnie was rudely awakened one night by a loud rapping at the door of the hut in which he had taken shelter, and learned, to his great surprise, that he was needed as a “voluntario,” which meant, as nearly as he could understand, that he was to put on handcuffs and march with the squad to division headquarters, and there be assigned to a company. In vain he explained, or thought he was explaining, that he was an American citizen and not subject to conscription. All the satisfaction he got was to be told that every morning and evening he was to cheer “for our noble Constitution and for General Pesquiera.”

After all, it was not such a very hard life. The marches were short, and the country well filled with chickens, eggs, and goats. What more could a soldier want? So, our friend did not complain, and went about his few duties with cheerfulness, and was making rapid progress in the shibboleth of “Long live our noble Constitution and General Pesquiera,”—when, one evening, the first sergeant of his company hit him a violent slap on the side of the head, and said: “You idiot, do you not know enough to cheer for General Gandara?” And then it was that poor Johnnie learned for the first time—he had been absent for several days on a foraging expedition and had just returned—that the general commanding had sold out the whole division to General Gandara the previous day for a dollar and six bits a head.

This was the last straw. Johnnie Hart was willing to fight, and it made very little difference to him on which side; but he could not put up with such a sudden swinging of the pendulum, and as he expressed it, “made up his mind to skip the hull outfit ’n punch the breeze fur Maz’tlan.”

All the packers were sociable, and inclined to be friendly to every one. The Spaniards, like “Chileno John,” José de Leon, Lauriano Gomez, and others, were never more happy—work completed—than in explaining their language to such Americans as evinced a desire to learn it. Gomez was well posted in Spanish literature, especially poetry, and would often recite for us with much animation and expression the verses of his native tongue. He preferred the madrigals and love ditties of all kinds; and was never more pleased than when he had organized a quartette and had begun to awaken the echoes of the grand old cañons or forests with the deliciously plaintive notes of “La Golondrina,” “Adios de Guaymas,” or other songs in minor key, decidedly nasalized. I may say that at a later date I have listened to a recitation by a packer named Hale, of Espronceda’s lines—“The Bandit Chief”—in a very creditable style in the balsam-breathing forests of the Sierra Madre.

The experiences of old Sam Wisser, in the more remote portions of Sonora and Sinaloa, never failed to “bring down the house,” when related in his homely Pennsylvania-German brogue. I will condense the story for the benefit of those who may care to listen. Sam’s previous business had been “prospecting” for mines, and, in pursuit of his calling, he had travelled far and near, generally so intent upon the search for wealth at a distance that he failed to secure any of that which often lay at his feet. Equipped with the traditional pack-mule, pick, spade, frying-pan, and blankets, he started out on his mission having as a companion a man who did not pretend to be much of a “prospector,” but was travelling for his health, or what was left of it. They had not reached the Eldorado of their hopes; but were far down in Sinaloa when the comrade died, and it became Sam’s sad duty to administer upon the “estate.” The mule wasn’t worth much and was indeed almost as badly worn out as its defunct master. The dead man’s clothing was buried with him, and his revolver went a good ways in paying the expenses of interment. There remained nothing but a very modest-looking valise nearly filled with bottles, pillboxes, and pots of various medicinal preparations warranted to cure all the ills that flesh is heir to. An ordinary man would have thrown all this away as so much rubbish, but our friend was a genius—he carefully examined each and every package, and learned exactly what they were all worth according to the advertisements. Nothing escaped his scrutiny, from the picture of the wretch “before taking,” to that of the rubicund, aldermanic, smiling athlete “after taking six bottles.” All the testimonials from shining lights of pulpit and bar were read through from date to signature, and the result of it all was that Sam came to the very logical conclusion that if he had in his possession panaceas for all ailments, why should he not practise the healing art? The next morning dawned upon a new Esculapius, and lighted up the legend “Medico” tacked upon the frame of the door of Sam’s hovel. It made no difference to the budding practitioner what the disorder was; he had the appropriate remedy at hand, and was most liberal in the amount of dosing to be given to his patients, which went far to increase their confidence in a man who seemed so willing to give them the full worth of their money. The only trouble was that Sam never gave the same dose twice to the same patient; this was because he had no memorandum books, and could not keep in mind all the circumstances of each case. The man who had Croton-oil pills in the morning received a tablespoonful of somebody’s “Siberian Solvent” at night, and there was such a crowd that poor Sam was kept much more busy than he at first supposed he should be, because the people were not disposed to let go by an opportunity of ridding themselves of all infirmities, when the same could be eradicated by a physician who accepted in payment anything from a two-bit-piece to a string of chile colorado. Sam’s practice was not confined to any one locality. It reached from the southern end of the Mexican State of Sinaloa to the international boundary. Sam, in other words, had become a travelling doctor—he kept travelling—but as his mule had had a good rest and some feed in the beginning of its master’s new career, the pursuers were never able to quite catch up with the Gringo quack whose nostrums were depopulating the country.