Toward evening we entered Progreso a village reputed among the natives to be a nest of thieves and assassins. While Thornton was away buying meat and I was rearranging our pack, six of the ugliest-looking Mexicans I ever saw strolled across the plaza, evidently to size up our outfit. Apparently it was to their liking, for when, twenty minutes later, we were riding into the ford of the Rio Salado just south of the town, the six, all heavily armed, loped past us, and when they emerged from the ford openly and impudently divided, three taking to the brush on one side of the road, and three on the other, riding forward and flanking the trail we had to follow. From then till dark their hats were almost constantly visible, two or three hundred yards ahead of us. Our horses being so jaded, we were sure they were not the prize sought, and it remained certain they were after our saddles and arms.
Riding quietly on behind them until it was too dark to see our move or follow the trail, we slipped off to the westward of the road, and camped in a deep depression in the plain, where we thought we could venture a small fire to cook our supper. But the fire proved a blunder. Before the water was fairly boiling in the coffee pot, Curly signalled trouble, and we jumped out of the fire-light and dropped flat in the bush just as the six fired a volley into the camp, one of the shots hitting the fire and filling our frying-pan with cinders and ashes. For an hour or more they sneaked about the camp, constantly firing into it, while we lay close without returning a single shot, content they would not dare try to rush us while uncertain of our position. And so it proved, for at length Curly's warnings ceased, and we knew they had withdrawn.
Waiting till midnight, we saddled and packed and made a wide detour to the west, striking the road again perhaps four miles nearer Lampasos, which we reached safely late in the next afternoon; our grand old camp-guard, Curly, in better condition than either of us.
Curiously, seven months later, in August, 1883, while on another ranch-hunting trip in Mexico, this time along the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre in northern Chihuahua at least five hundred miles distant from Musquiz, I learned the solution of our puzzle as to whether our last fight in Coahuila was with Lipans or Mexicans. The manager of the Corralitos Ranch, which I was then engaged in examining, was Adolph Munzenberger. The previous Winter he had lived in Musquiz, as Superintendent of the Cedral Coal Mines. While there, however, I had not met him or his family.
One evening at dinner, Mrs. Munzenberger asked me, "Have you ever, perchance, been in Coahuila?"
"Yes," I answered, "I spent several weeks in the State last Winter."
"And how did you like it?" she asked.
"Well, I must say I found rather too many thrills there for comfort," I replied. And when I mentioned affair on the sierra south of Musquiz, she broke in with:
"Indeed! And you are the crazy gringo Don Abran tried to stop from going into the desert! We heard of it; in fact, it was the talk of the town, and no one expected you would ever get back. And by the way, it was a contraband conducta owned by friends of ours who attacked you back of the town! Droll, is it not?"
"Perhaps—now," I doubtfully answered.