Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/532

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READY TO START.

of the day was spent in making preparations for our prospecting tour, as we termed it.


CHAPTER XXIX.


FIND SOME MURDERED EMIGRANTS.—WE BURY THE DEAD AND FOLLOW AND SCALP THE INDIANS.—GEN. CROOK IS PLEASED WITH THE OUTCOME.—A MOJAVE BLANKET.

The following morning I ordered ten days' rations for three of us. When we were ready to start Gen. Crook called me aside and told me the nature of the man who was to accompany us, saying that there was not a watering place nor an Indian trail in the whole territory that he did not know, and said he: "If you don't see any Indians or fresh sign of Indians he will show you all over the country. But he is the scariest man of Indians you ever saw in your life."

This man's name was Freeman. When we were ready to start Freeman asked me what course I wished to take. I told him that I would like to go in the direction that we would be the most likely to find Apaches. I pointed in the direction of a range of mountains, tell-