In 1866, savages, somewhat more daring
than usual, attacked and massacred the last of a party of eighty-six Chinamen
on the way to the mines near Boise, when even frontier stoicism and military
apathy were aroused to a semblance of vitality, and everybody agreed with owl-like
solemnity that “something must be done.” But who has to do it? Who was to bell
this cat that, with the subtlety of the serpent, the agility of the tiger, and
the cruelty of both, preyed upon ranchos and mines and wagon trains? Fortunately,
the questions suggested his own answer, and without a dissentient voice that
answer was General Crook.
This brief nonfiction narrative first appeared in The
Century Magazine, the March issue of 1891. It is much on par with Bourke’s
equally excellent, On the Border With Crook which is an expansion of
this work.
This brief work is vital, alive, rife with incident
and compelling in a way that fiction can seldom touch.
Captain Bourke has done us all a favor by recording
what he saw, what he experienced.
Highest recommendation.
