Page:Life among the Apaches.djvu/323

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LIFE AMONG THE APACHES.
317

vate fine gardens, nor spend their time in dress parades and burnishing weapons which are never used. The men selected for this service should be picked, and entirely reliable. The rations of coffee, sugar, tea, and everything but hard bread, the best of jerked beef, and tobacco, should be stopped while on duty in the field, and their pay should be increased in proportion. All the troops employed in active service must be cavalry, and their accoutrements should be simplified to the greatest possible extent. A trooper's horse should not be cumbered with a useless valise, holsters, and a ridiculous amount of harness for display. The soldier should be equipped with two Colt's belt pistols, a first-class Spencer carbine, and a large knife. All posts should be kept and guarded by the infantry, aided by a small detachment of cavalry to act as herders, and at each post there should not be less than from fifty to seventy-five good horses, which may be rendered immediately available by any scouting party whose animals are beginning to tire. At each post the Commissary should be required to keep constantly on hand and baled in raw-hide covers, packages of bread and meat of not more than sixty pounds in each bale, and enough in quantity to equal ten days' rations for fifty men. There should also be a sufficient number of pack mules and aparejos to pack this amount of provision, and no mule should be laden with more than two packs. With these precautions, a pursuing party could replenish their stores and receive fresh horses and mules without the unnecessary and vexatious delays which have proved so fatal to success in our Indian campaigns in the Territories named.

Three thousand men, divided into companies of fifty each, would place sixty such companies in the field at one time, and this force could sweep Arizona from end