o place within these pages. It may, however, be mentioned that Glanton
was the leader of a notorious gang of freebooters who established a
ferry across the Colorado at Yuma and used it as a hold-up scheme to
trap unwary emigrants. The Yuma Indians also operated a ferry, for which
they had hired as pilot a white man, whom some asserted to have been a
deserter from the United States army. One day Glanton and his gang,
angered at the successful rivalry of the Indians, fell on them and slew
the pilot. The Glanton gang was subsequently wiped out by the Indians in
retaliation.

When the Gila City gold rush set in Yuma was the point to which the
adventurers came to reach the new city. I have heard that as many as
three thousand gold seekers congregated at this find, but nothing is now
to be seen of the former town but a few old deserted shacks and some
Indian wickiups. Gold is still occasionally found in small quantities
along the Gila River near this point, but the immense placer deposits
have long since disappeared, although experts have been quoted as saying
that the company brave enough to explore the fastnesses of the mountains
back of the Gila at this point will probably be rewarded by finding rich
gold mines.

I will not dwell on the hardships of that desert march from Yuma to
Tucson, for which the rigors of the Civil War had fortunately prepared
most of us, further than to say that it was many long, weary days before
we finally came in sight of the "Old Pueblo." In Tucson I became, soon
after our arrival, twenty years old. I was a fairly hardy youngster,
too. We camped in Tucson on a piece of ground in the center of the town
and soon after our arrival were set to work making a clean, orderly
camp-park out of the wilderness of creosote bushes and mesquite. I
remember that for some offence against the powers of the day I was then
"serving time" for a short while and, among other things, I cut shrub on
the site of Tucson's Military Plaza, with an inelegant piece of iron
chain dangling uncomfortably from my left leg. Oh, I wasn't a saint
in those days any more than I am a particularly bright candidate for
wings and a harp now! I gave my superior officers fully as much trouble
as the rest of 'em!

[Illustration: RUINS OF OLD FORT BUCHANAN, DECEMBER 7, 1914]

Tucson's Military Plaza, it may be mentioned here, was, as stated,
cleared by Company C, First United States Cavalry, and that body of
troops was the only lot of so