The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1894-03-02

1T happened. The
~ other guests had
~ told in turn their
~ little story in the
~ free confidence one
fccls Mt the end OF
perfect dinner. I had related nv
romance, and VIC now turned to our
host.
Marlin, how did You win your
| wife?'
''It's Il long story began on hunt
ing pass in tho Arizona desert, crossed
the water, and ended in Colorado.
Light fresh cigars"
think it was the summer of SO.
Geronimo was not yet taken, and we
had been chasing in our turn until,
for lack of backs and feet, our horses
were tagging in the race, and we were
set to watch water-holes in the San
Simon, SO polluted with alkali and
arsenic sensible savage would have
summed it, rs my dyspepsia, which
dates from that campaign, tells me /
failed to do.
Somehow the Geronimo campaign
always reminded me of q fox-hunt;
the Indian scouts keeping their noses
close to tho scent like dogs toe slow
TO force the bush into the open, while
the various troops, like hunters in
different wind, held and lost the
place which promised first at the fin
ish. If you know Arizona at all, YOU
will recall how sharp and rocky are
tho crests of the divides; being lines
of most resistance in this land of deep
erosion, they retain the sharp, jagged
profile often seen in the snow-ice of
mountain drifts rs it disappears in
early summer. Below these SCOOPS lie
"A colony of rounded foothills, rcced-
ing and growing less until they end in
broken bowlder mesa, which, with
numerous arroyos, fades into the soft,
leye! adobe plain, and blends, as un-
wa. .u.,s.SE4 = IN 49, :" ch''
clorama Join the rocks and logs in the
pit below you.
The Indians preferred these sharp
crests, which were for them both
watch-towcrs and impregnable bas-
tions. Occasionally they would strike
across the valley, kill rancher, and
steel fresh ponies, and some troop
would cut in and crowd them in the
open till they took the next divide
and met some barrier that baked the
pursucrs and forced on them detour,
while some other troop, through acci-
dent of locality, would tack and take
the chosen place on the trail, giving
for a few days it's dust to the other
pursuing columns. 1t was weary
stern chase, performed under burning
skies of cloudless blue in thirsty
land of heat intolerabIe.
We had had our little squirt; had
brushed them off the divide, and for
three days led in the open across the
valley to the Sierra Madre, where
fresher horsehesh cut in from our
right and took from us tho place of
honor and left lis, footsore and back
sore and winded, Mt the base of the
mountains, where we were ordered
days march back into tho valley, near
the border, to guard water holes of
the San Simon in the sullcn month of
August The nights wcro getting
bearable, but the day heat still held
on with the stubborn insistence of
Southern summer. Our camp was not
happy--thc water was bad our shell
ter-halves, but little thicker than
checse-cloth, proved leaky sun shades,
and we reinforced them with our sad-
blankets; we had no amusement
except to growl, wish we wero in the
chase and wondering whose blooming
intellect had squattcd lis down among
Gila monsters and sand-fies to watch
water SO foul neither soil nor sun
would drink it.
Something was going to happen, for
the strain was telling on mems e nerves
The weather was too hot for camp
idleness, md we were near the Cline"
i was first sergeant of l. Troop then.
and. next to u coward or thief. I
think l loathed n deserter. We were
near the border of Mexico, where one
must not cross, but where smuggling
IS permitted and vice possible.
The men were getting irritable---I
knew the signs, the tension was reach
ing swapping point. L had boon think
ing Of it all day. That evening John
leighton and l were working under
the orderly fly ut the "rccords"--
posting Vaugn and Murray's "finals"
In the clothing and descriptive books
Vaugn was corporal and Murray our
blacksmith, who had been killed the
week before on the day we pushed tho
Apaches off the divide. We were
crowding them to closely in the lower
pass, when few bucks slipped off into
the canon and niproi our pack train
in rear. We had TO quit pressing in
front to save our train. It was q
clever bit of work. and five bucks did
it, killing two men for us, losing us
our game just as we we're bagging it.
Leighton was company clerk, q
talented, handsome fellow had served
out in India. He had cheering
freshness and facility of expression,
and spoke with the quick, falling in
Election and dircctncss of the English
in speech one so quickly learns to love.
He was mechanically ruling double
red lines in n book where life's nc