42 SADDLE AND CAMP 



bucks, all young fellows, bound for the Big Bo- 

 nita on an angling expedition. These Apaches 

 were the first human beings we had seen in six 



days. 



This is, indeed, a magnificent stretch of rug- 

 ged wilderness, and the remembrance of my ex- 

 periences in its great primordial pine forests, 

 untouched by lumberman's ax, its scenery un- 

 surpassed for variety and tone, its invigorating 

 air, its rushing streams, its days and nights of 

 marvelous beauty, will remain with me as some- 

 thing worth while. 



On the morning that we met the Apaches we 

 had come upon a blazed trail, which the In- 

 dians informed us led directly to Fort Apache, 

 which they estimated as eighteen miles distant. 

 An hour after meeting them, when we halted 

 at noon on Little Bonita creek, I took occasion 

 to bathe, shave, and don clean clothing in antici- 

 pation of our entrance that evening upon the 

 semi-civilization of the fort. But our hopes, as 

 always when one pins one's faith upon an In- 

 dian's estimate of distance, were doomed to dis- 

 appointment. 



We rode steadily until the afternoon was half 

 spent, when suddenly we broke out upon a high 

 point, below which the trail dropped abruptly 

 into a deep canon, and from a rocky bluff had 



Amimm 



