On The Border With Crook

ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK by JOHN G. BOURKE. Originally pubished in 1891. FOREWARD FOR NEW EDITION: The reason for the rarity of Bourkes classic On The Border With Crook, is not far to seek. Almost any chapter of this facsimilie reproduction reveals Bourke 2 s eminence as a popular writer, and Crooks high place in the western Indian Wars. These dominating features have made the work a volume to be read and referred to, and to be worn out in library use. Bourkes studious, methodical system of investigation, includ ing the almost photographic preservation, in his copious note books, of every useful memorandum, and mental impression, has netted him other more scholarly, if not more readable books. His treatises on the Indians of the Southwest, have gained for him the enviable regard of professional ethnologists. But he has also earned the endearment of lay readers, for reaching into the historic legends of the region, and the archives of the past, for further tales to give setting to the occurrences of the present. Probably no other writer ever did so much to preserve the atmosphere of Old Tucson, Arizona or of the primitive Apache Indians of the Southwest. And he did almost as much for early Deadwood, Dakota, and for the Great Plains Indians, during the savage wars of the Seventies. Bourke has the rare knack of taking the reader along with him as a close bystander. Here he sees the complete picture, breathes the exciting atmosphere, feels the tension, and the heat, suffers the wounds, hears the dialogue, smells the odors, meets the participants, the men of prominence, and men not promi nent until Bourke mentions them for they all bunk together in his hospitable notebooks. How could the scores of typically western adventure stories have been written into later prints, without cribbing from Bourke This includes some stock stories still current, which Bourke declares were old when he first met them The reader follows closely, for the stark surprises in store. He is enter tained in the hostelries and eating places, in the old dancing, academies of music, and in the saloons and gaming nests. He goes on the antelope chases, and attends the buffalo kills. And he witnesses the shootings, the lynchings, the hangings, the mas sacres, the throat-cuttings, and the dismemberings and even seems to assist with the belated burials. He jogs out with the cavalry, alongside the officers, the scouts, the guides, the packers, the cooks and he meets such shining shoulder Indian braves as Pretty Voice Bull, Charging Bear, Tall Wild Cat, Kills First, and Brave Buffalo, with names in tended to reflect their natures all on their distinguished way into Bourkes Memoranda files. If Bourke left anything out, the reader does not miss it. General Crook became more of an Indian by experience than many of the old Indian chieftains were by nature, says Bourke and refers to him as a Daniel Boone, with a college education. These men served together, as General and aide, for fifteen of the hardest possible years in the wilderness, with never a rift recorded. Out of sheer admiration for General Crook, seventeen years his senior, Captain Bourke qualifies as a biographer. Thus every Indian collision and casualty embellishes the services of his respected General...