The Chiricahuas had evidently lived in this place a considerable time. The heads and bones of cows and ponies were scattered about on all sides. Meat must have been their principal food, since we discovered scarcely any mescal or other vegetables. At one point the scouts indicated where a mother had been cutting a child’s hair; at another, where a band of youngsters had been enjoying themselves sliding down rocks. Here were picked up the implements used by a young Chiricahua assuming the duties of manhood. Like all other Indians they make vows and pilgrimages to secluded spots, during which periods they will not put their lips to water, but suck up all they need through a quill or cane. Hair-brushes of grass, bows and arrows, and a Winchester rifle had likewise been left behind by the late occupants. The pack-trains experienced much difficulty in keeping the trail this morning (May 9). Five mules fell over the precipice and killed themselves, three breaking their necks and two having to be shot. [Illustration: APACHE WEAPONS AND EQUIPMENTS.] Being now in the very centre of the hostile country, May 10, 1883, unusual precautions were taken to guard against discovery or ambuscade, and to hurry along the pack-mules. Parties of Apache scouts were thrown out to the front, flanks, and rear to note carefully every track in the ground. A few were detailed to stay with the pack-mules and guide them over the best line of country. Ax-men were sent ahead on the trail to chop out trees and remove rocks or other obstructions. Then began a climb which reflected the experience of the previous two days; if at all different, it was much worse. Upon the crest of the first high ridge were seen forty abandoned _jacales_ or lodges of branches; after that, another dismantled village of thirty more, and then, in every protected nook, one, two, or three, as might be. Fearful as this trail was the Chiricahuas had forced over it a band of cattle and ponies, whose footprints had been fully outlined in the mud, just hardened into clay. After two miles of a very hard climb we slid down the almost perpendicular face of a high bluff of slippery clay and loose shale into an open space dotted with Chiricahua huts, where, on a grassy space, the young savages had been playing their favorite game of mushka, or lance-billiards. Two white-tailed deer ran straight into the long file of scouts streaming down hill; a shower of rocks and stones greeted them, and there was much suppressed merriment, but not the least bit of noisy laughter, the orders being to avoid any cause of alarm to the enemy.