64 SADDLE AND CAMP 



Cavalrymen at Fort Apache told me that when 

 they returned from hard practice marches in 

 the mountains, their fine big horses were pretty 

 certain to be fagged and jaded, while the native 

 ponies ridden by the Indian scouts that accom- 

 panied them returned to the post fresh and ac- 

 tive, though they performed just as much and 

 often more work than the cavalry horses, and 

 on these marches foraged their own living, 

 while the cavalry horses were well grained. 



From the Carrizo our course was directed 

 over the Cibicue Mountains, in a northwesterly 

 direction. Here I saw the first of perhaps seven 

 or eight wild pigeons — the true passenger 

 pigeon — that I met with in this section of Ari- 

 zona. After a continuous march from early 

 morning we halted one mid-afternoon to make 

 camp some thirty yards from a spring on the 

 western slope of the Cibicue range. When all 

 was snug, our coffee made and bacon frying, 

 and we had seated ourselves for luncheon, John 

 exclaimed: 



"Look there! Wild pigeons!" 



Three birds had just alighted in a tall dead 

 tree close by the spring. The tree was void of 

 all foliage, the limbs bare, and the birds were in 

 excellent position to observe. With my binocu- 

 lars I took a position less than twenty yards 



