Dr. Davis Shot to Death.
On June 3, 1886, Dr. C. H. Davis, a brother of W. C. Davis, of Tucson, coming from the San Pedro river over the pass between the Catalinas and the Rincons, with a wagon and span of mules, was waylaid and killed by a band of these outlaws. J. P. Hohusen and W. H. Wheaton, coming from their homes on the San Pedro the day before, met Dr. Davis going out, and warned him against the Indians, but having been in the country but a short time, he failed to appreciate the danger and made light of the warning.
It was subsequently learned that Hohusen and Wheaton narrowly escaped this same band themselves as they were coming in to Tucson. When Hohusen returned home he learned from his man that the Indians had been at his place the night before the killing of Davis, and attempted to drive off some of his horses from the pasture; but the man, seizing his rifle, jumped into a well which was partly caved in and which naturally furnished him an excellent defensive position, and from this he fired at the Indians, but without apparent effect other than to force them to leave the place. After the killing of Dr. Davis, the Indians, taking the two mules, went to Walter Vail’s Happy Valley ranch, in the Rincons, where they left the mules in exchange for a bunch of Vail’s horses, shooting, but not killing, Cal Mathews, the herder. From Happy Valley they passed south into the Whetstones, where they shot and killed Marcus Goldbaum. Edward L. Vail, one of the party going out to the scene of the killing, found that the Indians had been gone but a few hours, having also killed a partner of Goldbaum as he was en route to Benson.