Meanwhile a couple of scouts were making bread,--the light, thin “tortillas” of the Mexicans, baked quickly in a pan, and not bad eating. Two others were fraternally occupied in preparing their bed for the night. Grass was pulled by handfuls, laid upon the ground, and covered with one blanket, another serving as cover. These Indians, with scarcely an exception, sleep with their feet pointed toward little fires, which, they claim, are warm, while the big ones built by the American soldiers, are so hot that they drive people away from them, and, besides, attract the attention of a lurking enemy. At the foot of this bed an Apache was playing on a home-made fiddle, fabricated from the stalk of the “mescal,” or American aloe. This fiddle has four strings, and emits a sound like the wail of a cat with its tail caught in a fence. But the noble red man likes the music, which perhaps is, after all, not so very much inferior to that of Wagner. Enchanted and stimulated by the concord of sweet sounds, a party of six was playing fiercely at the Mexican game of “monte,” the cards employed being of native manufacture, of horse-hide, covered with barbarous figures, and well worthy of a place in any museum. The cooking was by this time ended, and the savages, with genuine hospitality, invited the Americans near them to join in the feast. It was not conducive to appetite to glance at dirty paws tearing bread and meat into fragments; yet the meat thus cooked was tender and juicy, the bread not bad, and the coffee strong and fairly well made. The Apaches squatted nearest to the American guests felt it incumbent upon them to explain everything as the meal progressed. They said this (pointing to the coffee) is Tu-dishishn (black water), and that Zigosti (bread). All this time scouts had been posted commanding every possible line of approach. The Apache dreads surprise. It is his own favorite mode of destroying an enemy, and knowing what he himself can do, he ascribes to his foe--no matter how insignificant may be his numbers--the same daring, recklessness, agility, and subtlety possessed by himself. These Indian scouts will march thirty-five or forty miles in a day on foot, crossing wide stretches of waterless plains upon which a tropical sun beats down with fierceness, or climbing up the faces of precipitous mountains which stretch across this region in every direction.