Captured by the Navajos | Page 3

successful war. Besides our regiment of regular infantry, it had
two regiments of California volunteer infantry and one regiment each
of California and New Mexican cavalry.

The Navajo upon the war-path was terribly in earnest, and his methods
of waging war were like those of the redman everywhere. With the
knowledge that the American soldier was an ally of his old-time enemy,
and that the Mexican was wearing the uniform of the "Great Father," he
no longer hesitated to look upon us as his enemies also, and resolved to
combat us up to the very walls of our posts.
No road in the Territory was safe to the traveller; no train dared move
without an escort. Towns were raided, and women and children carried
into captivity. Frightful cases of mutilation and torture were constantly
occurring in the mountain fastnesses. Troops took the field, and
prosecuted with vigilance a war in which there was little glory and
plenty of suffering and hard service.
Every band of Indians captured was taken to the Bosque Rodondo, on
the Rio Pecos, where a large fort had been established. It was occupied
by a strong garrison of infantry and cavalry.
I had found social life in Santa Fé very pleasant during my brief stay
there, so I was not overjoyed when I received the order to march my
company to Los Valles Grandes, there to relieve the California
company already referred to. But the order being peremptory, we
packed our baggage during the first hours of the night, and were on the
road soon after daybreak.
It was the 3d of October when the boy corporals and myself, mounted
on sturdy Mexican ponies, rode out of Fort Marcy for our new station,
one hundred miles due west. The regimental band escorted the
company through the plaza and for a mile on our way, playing, after
immemorial custom, "The Girl I Left Behind Me," and adding, I
thought with a vein of irony, "Ain't Ye Glad You've Got Out th'
Wilderness?"
On the morning of the 8th, after four days of gradual and constant
ascent from the valley of the Rio Grande, which we had forded at San
Ildefonso, we began the slower ascent of the most difficult portion of
our march.

The woods were full of wild turkeys and mountain grouse, made fat on
the pine-nuts, and Frank and Henry and the soldier huntsmen secured a
generous supply for our first meal in our new military home.
It took us from early morning until noon of the last day's march to
reach the highest point of the road. What with the frequent halts for the
men to fasten a rope to the wagon-poles and aid the severely taxed
mules up the steepest places, to fill gullies and sloughs with stones and
brush, to pry mired wheels up to firm ground, and repair broken
harnesses and wagons, we were over half a day in going a distance
which could have been accomplished in two hours by soldiers
unencumbered with a baggage and supply train.
The downward march on the western slope of the mountain-range was
rapidly made over a smooth road through a continuous avenue of
overarching forest trees, and without a halt. From the lower limit of the
forest we caught the first glimpse of the Great Valleys. The valley
before us was fourteen miles long, and of a nearly uniform width of
eight miles. It was almost surrounded by mountains; in fact, while there
were many trails leading out of it, there was but one practicable
wagon-road--that by which we had entered. But at the southern
extremity there was a precipitous cañon, through which flowed a
considerable stream. To the west was another cañon, a dry one, called
La Puerta--the doorway--which led into the second valley, called the
Valley of San Antonio.
The Great Valley, on the eastern edge of which I had halted the
company for a few moments' rest and observation, was lower through
the centre than at the sides. It was not unlike an oblong platter, and was
absolutely treeless, except that opposite us a bold, pine-clad point jutted
out from the western mountain-range about three miles, like a headland
into the sea.
The whole valley was verdant with thick grass. The two boys, sitting on
their ponies a few yards in advance of the company line, were in
raptures over the prospect.
"This is the first bit of country I've seen in New Mexico that looks like

Vermont," said Frank.
"Yes, and what a change in the space of a few miles!" observed Henry.
"On the opposite side of this range were only bunch-grass, cactus, and
sand, and here we have fine turf and waving grass. What are those
objects in that farther corner, sir?" he continued, turning to me and
pointing to