Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1895-07-11

| 1T happened. Ihe
~ other guests had
~I told in turn their
little story in the
@@1 free confidence one
~ feels at the end of
a perfect dinner. / had related my
romance, and we now turned to our
host.
marlin, how did you win your
wife?"
| sIt's long began on hunt
ing pass in the Arizona desert, crossed
the water, and ended in Colorado.
Light fresh cigars.
think it was the summer of 'S6.
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 We're
set to watch water-holes in the San
Simon, SO polluted with alkali and
arsenic q sensible savage would have
Stunned it, as my dyspepsia, which
dates from that campaign, tells me l
failed to do.
| Somehow the Geronimo campaign
always reminded me of fox-hunt;
the Indian scouts keeping their noses
close to the scent like dogs too 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 deer
; erosion, they retain the sharp, jagged
3 profile often seen in the snow-ice OF
mountain drifts as it disappears IN
early summer. Below these scoops lie
q colony of rounded foothills, reced
ing and growing less until they end il
: broken bowlder mesa, which, witt
d numerous arroyos, fades into the soft
q level adobe plain, and blends, as I'M
suspected as the canvas walls Of cy
clorama Join the rocks and logs in thu
= pit below you.
d The Indians preferred these sharl
!. crests, which were for them boil
J. watch-towers and impregnahle has
tions. Occasionally they would strik'
!, across the valley, kill rancher, ant
IS steel fresh ponies, and some trool
l. would cut in and crowd them in th
J open till they took the next divid
and met some barrier that baked tn
= pursuers and forced on them adetour
II while some other troop, through acci
II dent OF locality, would tack and tax
Il the chosen place on the trail, givin
! for few days its dust to the othe
Z pursuing columns. 1t was wear
, stern-chase, performed under burnin
!. skies Of cloudless blue in thirst
/ land of heat intolerable.
= We had had our little squirt; ha
!. brushed them of the divide, and 70
= three days led in the open across th
4 valley to the Sierra Madre, wher
sresher horsefesh cut in from on
right and took from us the place {
+ honor and left lis, foot-sore and bach
/. sore and winded, at the base Of th
" mountains, where we we're ordered
y davis march back into the valley, nes
r. the border, to guard water holes {
es the San Simon in the sullen month (
\ August. The nights were gettin
- bearable, but the day heat still bel
s. on with the stubborn insistence of
le Southern summer. Our camp was M
S, happy---the water was bad; our she
"a ter-halves, but little thicker tha
cheese-cloth, proved leaky sun-shade
: and we reinforced them with our So,
e. dle-b blankets; we had no amusemel
I'd except to growl. wish we were in Il
Nv chase and wondering whose bloomir
"a intellect had squatted us down amor
Gila monsters and sand-fies to waite
on water SO foul neither soil nor 81
n would drink it.
Oh Something was going to happen, fl
ed the strain was telling on mems nerve
70 The weather was too hot for can
idleness, and we were near the slime
ne was first sergeant Of L Troop the
ge and, next to coward or q thief,
of think loathed deserter. We we
,st near the border of Mexico, where o.
must not cross, but where smugglil
70 is permitted and vice possible.
les The men were getting irritable
;ho knew the signs, the tension was reac
,en ing swapping point. I had been thin
- ing Of it all day. That evening Jol
T,e;ohton and I were working und
20 the orderly fly at the 'records"---we
ng posting Waugh and Murray's 'inal
led in the clothing and descriptive bool
,he Waugh was corporal and Murray .
blacksmith, who had been killed t
- week before on the day we pushed t
ing Apaches off the divide. We we
er, crowding them to closely in the low
in pass, when few bucks slipped off in
tho conon and nipued our mack tre