Lieutenant Baylor then explained to the weeping father that his son was very much alive and that we had seen him that very night bewailing the death of the father he thought killed. And it now developed that all the dead men were alive! When the camp was attacked each Mexican had scattered, and the Apaches had been too busy looting the stores to follow the fugitives. Moreover, those ranchers would fight and the Indians did not care to follow them into the brush.
A bright young Mexican went with us to the hay camp, which was about six miles toward Comales, where Don Juan Armendaris now has a cow ranch. The Apaches had made a mess of things in camp sure enough. They had broken all the cups and plates, poured salt into the sugar, this combination into the flour and beans and the conglomeration of the whole on the ground, as the sacks were all they wanted. The Indians smashed the coffee pot, the frying pan, the skillet and the water barrels with an ax. Then taking all the blankets, the raiders started eastward as though they intended to go to the Sierra Priela, but after going a mile the trail turned south. We found the redskins had come from the north by way of Los Cormuros and were probably from Fort Stanton, New Mexico, on their way to raid Old Mexico. They were in a dry country and making for the Rio Grande, fourteen miles to the south. When they discovered the hay camp on their route they charged it and fired on the hay cutters. The Mexicans scattered and made their escape in the darkness, each thinking himself the sole survivor and so reporting on reaching his home, though as a matter of fact not a single life was lost.
Our guide went back to give the alarm to the ranches below and we followed the trail down the mesa until opposite Guadalupe. There we crossed the overland stage route near the present Rio Grande Station and found our guide waiting for us. He had discovered the trail, and fearing the Indians might ambush the road below, he had awaited our arrival. The trail made straight for the Rio Grande, crossing about one mile west of the Mexican town of Guadalupe. From the pony and mule tracks Lieutenant Baylor judged there were fifteen to twenty Indians in the band. We had some trouble following the trail after we got to the river bottom, where loose horses and cattle ran, but a few of us dismounted and worked the trail out, crossed the river and struck camp for dinner.
Lieutenant Baylor sent Pablo Mejia into town to inform the president of Guadalupe that we had followed a fresh Apache trail to the Rio Grande going south into Mexico, and asked permission to follow the Indians into his country. The scout soon returned and reported that the president was not only pleased that we had pursued the redskins, but would willingly join us himself with all the men he could muster. Just after we crossed the river we came across a Mexican herder with a flock of goats. As soon as he heard we were trailing the Apaches he began yelling at the top of his voice and soon had the goats on the jump for town, though the Indians had passed the night before. We were quickly in saddle again, and as we rode into the pueblo we were kindly received by the people. We found a mare the Apaches had killed just on the edge of town and from which they had taken some of the choice steaks.
After leaving Guadalupe the trail went south, following closely the stage road from Juarez to Chihuahua. Not long after leaving town we met a courier coming to Guadalupe from Don Ramon Arrandas' ranch, San Marcos de Cantarica, twenty-one miles distant, who informed us that the Apaches had killed a herder on that ranch and had taken four horses and sixteen mules of the stage company. We hurried onward and reached Cantarica at sunset, having traveled seventy-eight miles since 1 a.m. that morning. Both men and horses were rather tired.
All was confusion at the ranch. The Mexican herder had been shrouded and laid out with a cross at his head and several little lighted candles near the body. Many women were sitting around the room with black shawls pulled up over their heads. The Apaches, numbering sixteen well armed and well mounted warriors, had slain their victim and captured the stock near the ranch just about noon. Mexican volunteers from Guadalupe and San Ignacio began to ride in until our combined force numbered twenty-five or twenty-six men. Everyone was excited at the thought of a brush with the redskins responsible for the murder.
Accompanied by our volunteer allies we left the ranch at daylight next morning and picked up the trail at once. It led off south along the base of the Armagora Mountains or Sierra Bentanos. As the Mexicans were familiar with the country they took the lead and followed the trail rapidly. About 11 o'clock the trailers halted at the mouth of the Canyon del Moranos, an ugly black hole cut in the mountains, looking grim and defiant enough without the aid of Apache warriors. When we had joined the Mexicans—we were traveling some half a mile behind them—Lieutenant Baylor and Captain Garcia held a short conference. The lieutenant turned to me and said that Captain Garcia declared the Indians were in the canyon among the rocks, and ordered me to detail two men to guard our horses while we scaled the mountain on foot and investigated it. I could not bring myself to believe that a band of Indians that had killed a man and driven off all the stage stock the day before had gone only thirty miles and was now lying in wait for us.
"You don't know the Apaches," Lieutenant Baylor declared when I voiced my thoughts. "They are very different from the plains Indians, the kind you have been used to following. These Apaches delight to get into the rocks and lay for their enemies."
At the conference the Mexicans suggested that Lieutenant Baylor should take nine of his men and ten of their volunteers and follow the trail up the canyon, but the lieutenant declared that this would never do, as the Apaches had no doubt anticipated just such a move and hidden themselves in the cliffs where they could kill their attackers without exposing themselves in the least. He proposed scaling the mountain and following them down on top of the ridge in the Indians' rear. And this was the strategy finally adopted.
The Mexicans dismounted and started up the mountainside about one hundred yards to our left. Lieutenant Baylor and his eight rangers marched straight forward from our horses and began the ascent. As we went along the lieutenant pulled some bunch grass and stuck it all around under his hat band so his head would look like a clump of grass and conceal his head and body if he should have to flatten himself on the ground. He counselled us to follow his example. I had taken some Mexican cheese out of my saddle pockets and was eating it as we marched carelessly up the mountain. Honestly, I did not believe there was an Indian within a hundred miles of us, but it was not long before I changed my mind. Suddenly there came a loud report of a gun and then another. I looked up to where the Mexicans had taken position behind a ledge of rocks and saw where a bullet struck the stones a foot above their heads. I did not want any more cheese. I threw down what I had in my hand and spat out what I had in my mouth.