A FRUITLESS CHASE. 367 



chance. By the time the cavalry were in motion the cattle- 

 lifters had been able to drive the stock fifty miles, and had, 

 therefore, eighty miles start. The troops were sixteen days 

 in the field having eked out their rations with game killed 

 on the march had followed a most difficult trail nearly 

 two hundred miles into the country of the Final- Apaches, 

 through tremendous canons, across lava beds, rivers, and 

 mountain ranges ; but, except an occasional distant spy, 

 had not seen an Indian, or anything of the lifted herd but 

 their tracks, and the wolf and jaguar-mangled remains of 

 such of them as, giving out from fatigue, had been killed 

 en route, or been slaughtered for food by the Indians at 

 their nightly camps. They returned, men and horses done 

 up with rapid travelling, short commons, exposure, and dis- 

 appointment ; and so ended this and many another hard 

 scout I have been on in that desperately difficult country to 

 campaign in the home of the Apache. 



