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Updated: June 17, 2025
I knew there was none to be obtained at Camp Apache, as most of the merchandise came in by pack-train to that isolated place. Mrs. Two iron cots from the hospital were brought over, and two bed-sacks filled with fresh, sweet straw, were laid upon them; over these were laid our mattresses. Woven-wire springs were then unheard of in that country.
The crafty dato pondered long before he accepted their offer, all the while watching for an attack. It was impossible for him to believe their generosity could be genuine, so used was he to the treachery of Spanish strangers. When the pack-train loaded with supplies appeared at the head of the steep mountain pass, a cry went up from the hungry people, and a rush was made toward it.
The trees, the wood-aisles, the extent of vision shrunk to the normal proportions of an Eastern pinery. And then we would lower our gaze. The pack-train would come into view. It had become lilliputian, the horses small as white mice, the men like tin soldiers, as though we had undergone an enchantment.
It was not until one o'clock that he found himself at such a point that he could look forward and see part of the country toward the Colorado Chiquito; but not a vestige of the cavalry or pack-train was anywhere in sight, and his horse was now so weary that he could only answer with a groan the touch of the spur, and could not by any possibility accelerate his speed.
On the afternoon of Tuesday, June 28, one of the small vessels of the mosquito fleet arrived from Guantanamo Bay with a letter from Captain McCalla in which he said that General Perez had furnished a pack-train and an escort for the food that the Red Cross had promised to send to the Guantanamo refugees, and that he would like to have us return there as soon as possible and land five thousand rations.
They crossed many trails, and went up and down the sides of many shallow canyon. Troops of wild mustangs whistled at them, stood on ridge-tops to watch, and then dashed away with manes and tails flying. Withers rode forward presently and halted the pack-train. He had some conversation with Nas Ta Bega, whereupon the Indian turned his horse and trotted back, to disappear in the cedars.
"Will you tell this misbegotten guide that I wish to return to the water we passed a little while ago? I should like to talk to you, if you don't mind." Lewis translated the order. "So they are words, after all," said the guide. He shook his head from side to side, as one who suspects witchcraft. When the pack-train was headed back on the road it had come, Lewis turned to the guide.
By the time we were ready to start we had a good-sized pack-train on our hands. The proprietor of the hotel found us an arriero, whom he declared to be the most competent and trustworthy guide in all the Andes a long, loose-jointed fellow with an air of complete indifference habitually resting on his yellow, rather sinister-looking face.
Ever since Norine had so rudely shattered his romantic fancies the major had treated both her and O'Reilly with a stiff and distant formality. He began now by saying: "I am despatching a message to General Gomez's headquarters, asking him to send a pack-train and an escort for these supplies. There is danger here; perhaps you would like to go on with the couriers."
To this generation, barring a few officers who have served against the Indians on the plains and in the mountains, a pack-mule train would be as great a curiosity as the hairy mammoth. In the following particulars I have taken as a model the genuine Mexican pack-train or atajo, as it was called in their Spanish dialect, always used in the early days of the Santa Fe trade.
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