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Updated: June 10, 2025
Barely a mile away to the north-east of the site of old Camp Almy a ridge of rock and shale stretches down from the foothills of the Black Mesa and shuts off all view of the rugged, and ofttimes jagged, landscape beyond all save the peaks and precipitous cliffs of the Mogollon, and some of the pine-crested heights that hem the East Fork.
To the far northwards, could be dimly observed the outlines of the Mogollon range of mountains. The population consisted chiefly of about four hundred dare-devil spirits who had started to wander westwards in search of the El Dorado and had finally settled there, too tired, too disgusted to go any farther, and lacking money enough to return to their homes.
My old guide, Al Doyle of Flagstaff, had led me over half of Arizona, but never down into that wonderful wild and rugged basin between the Mogollon Mesa and the Mazatzal Mountains. Doyle had long lived on the frontier and his version of the Pleasant Valley War differed markedly from that of Mr. Adams. I asked other old timers about it, and their remarks further excited my curiosity.
The general had established field headquarters temporarily at Camp McDowell, down the Verde Valley, and under his somewhat distant supervision four or five little columns of horse, in single file, were boring into the fastnesses of the Mogollon and the Tonto Basin. The runners had been unsuccessful. The renegades would not return.
The rim rock of the Mogollon Mesa is of the same character as the walls of the Grand Canon and is an important part of the canon system. It is almost a perpendicular cliff from one to three thousand feet high which extends from east to west across central Arizona and divides the great northern plateau from the southern valleys.
Being in the pay and under the protection of the United States, 'Tonio could be called on for explanation at any time, only there were two ways of calling. "Tell him," said Willett, "the chief-of-chiefs believes the Apache Mohaves are hiding in the Mogollon, many of them bucks, squaws and children, and he was sent to find them and to bring them to the reservation. Why did he fail?"
No news as yet had come from the runners sent forth in search of the scattered fugitives, who would soon be flocking together again in the fastnesses of the Mogollon to the east or the Red Rock country northward the latter probably, as being nearer their friends at the reservation and farther from the few renegade Tontos lurking in the mountains toward Fort Apache.
It was an unmarked course from the beginning, leading them steadily down into the Mogollon range, and, as before, Johnson was occupying the lead, with Jim next behind, and Glover bringing up the rear. And, as on the first leg of the journey, all rode in silence.
I reckoned upon my superbly healthy nature to bring me through. In fact, I did not think much about it; I simply got ready and went, as soldiers do. I heard them say that we were not to cross the Mogollon range, but were to go to the north of it, ford the Colorado Chiquito at Sunset Crossing, and so on to Camp Verde and Whipple Barracks by the Stoneman's Lake road. It sounded poetic and pretty.
We forded the Little Colorado at Sunset Crossing, a lonely colony, where a few Mormons were the only inhabitants of a vast area of wilderness. We were headed due west toward a mesa rising abruptly from the plateau which we were then traversing. This mesa was again capped by a chain of lofty peaks, one of the Mogollon mountain ranges.
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