The region in which these operations took place is one of the roughest in the United States. It is located on the western side of the great "Tonto Basin" in central Arizona, and consists of ragged mountain ranges, and isolated peaks, while the whole area is cut and seamed with deep box cañons impassable for miles. About fifty miles from the city of Phoenix, as the crow flies, and near the great Roosevelt irrigation reservoir and dam, four granite peaks pierce the sky. Here Nature is found in one of her most inhospitable moods, and in the fastnesses of these "Four Peaks" several bands of the hunted, harassed Apaches took refuge. In its mighty cañons the Indians knew of caves and cliffs where they had lived in safety from their old enemies for many years; there they believed no white man could possibly reach them. Crook and his soldiers matched wits with the Indians and beat them at their own game. Wherever the Indians went there the troops followed them. They chased them on foot when their horses played out, lived on the scantiest possible allowance of food, slept in the deep snows with but a single blanket and without fires lest the telltale smoke give the Indians warning of their presence. It was to surprise the occupants of one of these caves that Major Brown and his men were making this night march. There the Apaches had fled, carrying into the cave great quantities of food and other necessary supplies, leaving their ponies behind to shift for themselves. The cave itself is not a cave in the strict sense of the word, but rather a great weather-worn shelf, similar to those used by the ancient cliff dwellers for their habitations all over the Southwest. At the outside edge the opening is about fifteen feet high from floor to roof, and sixty feet wide. The roof slopes back into the cliff for some thirty feet to a point where the rear wall is not over three feet high. At the front, the floor of the cave projects some little distance beyond the overhanging cliff forming a sort of platform. Entirely around this platform the Apaches had raised a stone-wall several feet high, inside of which they rested in fancied security. On top of the mountain Major Brown's command, which numbered but fifty men and officers, with two civilian guides, waited while the two scouts wormed their way into the blackness of the cañon's depths in an attempt to make sure that the Indians did not have any pickets outside the cave to guard against surprise. The cool night breeze made the soldiers' teeth chatter. Some dropped off to sleep, while others huddled together under the lee of the great rocks whose surface still gave off some slight warmth stored up during the day. Meantime they cursed, with a soldier's vehemence, the slowness of the scouts in returning. Finally they came, dropping into the midst of the men as if from above, so quietly did they move.