We struck the main road fifty miles south of the Lieutenant's quarters. Here we laid over two days, thinking that there might be an emigrant train come along that we could escort through to headquarters, this part of the road being in the heart of the Apache country, and the most dangerous for emigrants from the fact that it is all a timber country and over mountains which, in places, are very rocky, thereby giving the Indians all advantage over the emigrants.
The evening of the second day, just as we were sitting down to supper, I received a message from Lieut. Jackson for George Jones and myself to come to headquarters at once, but he did not state why he required our presence there. As soon as supper was over we started. The dispatch bearer thought it was at least sixty miles, but we had supposed it was not more than fifty, each of us having two saddle horses.
At one place on the road the cayotes turned loose, and it sounded as if there must have been a hundred, all barking at once, and George Jones remarked: "Above all things that I have dreaded while in this business is being shot down and left on the plains for my bones to be picked up by those sneaking wolves, and now Cap, I will make this agreement with you; in case that either of us happen to be killed, which is liable to happen any day, the surviving one is to see that the other is buried if in the bounds of possibility."
I said: "George, we will shake hands on that," which we did, and I added: "You can also rest assured that if ever you are shot down while in company with me, no Indian will ever scalp you as long as I have the strength to stand over your body, nor shall the cayotes ever pick your bones if I live long enough to see that you are buried," and the reader will see later on that I kept my promise.
CHAPTER XLI.
WE LOCATE A SMALL BAND OF RED BUTCHERS AND SEND THEM TO THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS.—EMIGRANTS MISTAKE US FOR INDIANS.—GEORGE JONES WOUNDED.
Just at sunrise we made our appearance at the Lieutenant's quarters, and he informed us that the Indians had made an attack on the settlement on the east side of the San Antonio desert; had killed two families, taken two little girls prisoner and captured a lot of stock from the settlers.
This report had first reached Gen. Crook at Fort Yuma, and he had dispatched the news to Lieut. Jackson. This being a strange country to the Lieutenant, having never been over it and knowing that I had been through it twice, once with Uncle Kit Carson and another time in company with Jim Beckwith, he insisted on my going out in that section to investigate the matter and see whether or not the report was true.
The day following George and I started with four assistants for the settlement. Each of us took two saddle horses and one pack animal for each two men, with ten days' rations. From there to the settlement was about seventy-five miles.
Knowing just where the majority of the Apache force was concentrated, we took rather a circuitous route in-stead of going direct to the settlement in order to ascertain whether the depredations were committed by Apaches or Pimas.