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Page 71
Slim waited at Fort Grant for orders, writing back to Sage-brush,
telling him of his plans.
Fort Grant followed the usual plan of all frontier posts. A row
of officers' houses faced the parade-grounds. Directly opposite
were the cavalry barracks fort. On one side of the quadrangle
were the stables, and the fourth line consisted of the
quartermaster's buildings and the post-trader's store. Small
ranchmen had gathered near the fort for protection, and because
of the desire of the white man for company. In days of peace
garrison life was monotonous. But the Apaches needed constant
watching.
As a soldier, the Apache was cruel and cowardly. He always
fought dismounted, never making an attack unless at his own
advantage. As infantryman he was unequalled. Veteran army
officers adopted the Apache tactics, and installed in the army
the plan of mounted infantry; soldiers who move on horseback but
fight on foot detailing one man of every four to guard the
horses. Methods similar to those used by the Apaches were put
into use by the Boers in the South African War.
Indeed, the scouting of these Dutch farmers possessed many of the
characteristics of the Apaches. So, too, the Japanese soldiers
hid from the Russians with the aid of artificial foliage in the
same way that an Indian would creep up on his victim by tying a
bush to the upper part of his body and crawling toward him on his
knees and elbows.
Mounted on wiry ponies inured to hardships, to picking up a
living on the scanty herbage of the plains, riding without
saddles, and carrying no equipment, the Indians had little
trouble in avoiding the soldiers. Leaving the reservation, the
Apaches would commit some outrage, and then, swinging on the arc
of a great circle, would be back to camp and settled long before
the soldiers could overtake them. Hampered by orders from the
War Department, which, in turn, was molested by the sentimental
friends of the Indians, soldiers never succeeded in taming the
Apache Crook cut off communications and thrashed them so
thoroughly in these same Lava Beds that they never recovered.
In Slim's absence, Buck McKee and his gang had taken possession
of Pinal County. Rustlers and bad men were coming in from Texas
and the Strip. Slim's election for another term was by no means
certain. He did not know this, but if he had, it would not have
made any difference to him. He was after Jack, and, at any cost,
would bring him back to face trial. The rogues of Pinal County
seized upon the flight of Jack as a good excuse to down Slim. The
Sheriff was more eager to find Jack and learn from him that
Buck's charge was false than to take him prisoner. He knew the
accusation would not stand full investigation.
Slowly the hours passed until the order for "boots and saddles"
was sounded, and the troops trotted out of the fort gate. Scouts
soon picked up their trail, but that was different from finding
the Indians. Oft-times the troopers would ride into a hastily
abandoned camp with the ashes still warm, but never a sight of a
warrior could be had. Over broad mesas, down narrow mountain
trails, and up canons so deep that the sun never fully penetrated
them, the soldiers followed the renegades.
For a day the trail was lost. Then it was picked up by the print
of a pony's hoof beside a water-hole. But always the line of
flight led toward an Apache spring in the Lava Beds.
Slim and his posse took their commands from the officers of the
pursuers. The cow-punchers gave them much assistance as scouts,
knowing the country, through which the Indians fled. Keeping in
touch with the main command, they rode ahead to protect it from
any surprise. The chief Indian scout got so far ahead at one
time in the chase that he was not seen for two days. Once, by
lying flat on his belly, shading his eyes with his hands, and
gazing intently at a mountainside so far ahead that the soldiers
could scarcely discern it, he declared he had seen the fugitives
climb the trail. The feat seemed impossible, until the second
morning after, when the scout pointed out to the colonel the
pony-tracks up the mountainside. The Apache scouts kept track of
the soldiers' movements, communicating with the main body with
blanket-signals and smoke columns.
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