On May 15, 1883, we climbed and marched ten or twelve miles to the south-east, crossing a piece of country recently burned over, the air, filled with soot and hot dust, blackening and blistering our faces. Many more old ruins were passed and scores of walls of masonry. The trail was slightly improved, but still bad enough; the soil, a half-disintegrated, reddish feldspar, with thin seams of quartz crystals. There were also granite, sandstone, shale, quartzite, and round masses of basalt. In the bottoms of the cañons were all kinds of “float”--granite, basalt, sandstone, porphyry, schist, limestone, etc.; but no matter what the kind of rock was, when struck upon the hill-sides it was almost invariably split and broken, and grievously retarded the advance. III. About noon of the 15th we had descended into a small box cañon, where we were met by two white men (packers) and nine Apache scouts. They had come back from Crawford with news for which all were prepared. The enemy was close in our front, and fighting might begin at any moment. The scouts in advance had picked up numbers of ponies, mules, burros, and cattle. This conversation was broken by the sudden arrival of an Apache runner, who had come six miles over the mountains in less than an hour. He reached us at 1.05, and handed General Crook a note, dated 12.15, stating that the advance-guard had run across the Chiricahuas this morning in a cañon, and had become much excited. Two Chiricahuas were fired at, two bucks and a squaw, by scouts, which action had alarmed the hostiles, and their camp was on the move. Crawford would pursue with all possible rapidity. At the same moment reports of distant musketry-firing were borne across the hills. Crawford was fighting the Chiricahuas! There could be no doubt about that; but exactly how many he had found, and what luck he was having, no one could tell. General Crook ordered Chaffee to mount his men, and everybody to be in readiness to move forward to Crawford’s support, if necessary. The firing continued for a time, and then grew feeble and died away. All were anxious for a fight which should bring this Chiricahua trouble to an end; we had an abundance of ammunition and a sufficiency of rations for a pursuit of several days and nights, the moon being at its full.