When the company of Mexicans did not return there was great sorrow and alarm in the little town of Carrajal. As it was supposed that only a small band of Apaches bent on horse stealing was in the Candelarios, another small band of fourteen men volunteered to go and see what had become of their friends and kindred. Don Jose Mario Rodriguez was appointed commander, and the little party took the trail of their comrades with sad forebodings. Old Victorio, from his watch towers in the Candelarios, saw this rescue party and prepared for its destruction. The signs indicated that the second party had walked into the same death trap as the first, but the second band had scattered more in fighting and a good many of the Mexicans were killed on the southern slope of the hills. Two had attempted to escape on horseback but were followed and killed. I found one of these unfortunates in an open plain some six hundred yards from the hills. He had been surrounded, and, seeing escape was impossible, had dismounted, tied his horse to a Spanish dagger plant and put up a good fight. I found thirty or forty cartridge shells near where he had fallen. His pony had been killed and the dagger plant shot to pieces. The Apaches had cut off his right hand and had carried away his gun, six-shooter, saddle and bridle.
When neither party returned then, indeed, was there sorrow in the town of Carrajal, for twenty-nine of her principal citizens had left never to return. Wives, mothers, and sweethearts mourned the loss of their dear ones. A runner was sent to El Paso del Norte and the citizens began to organize a punitive expedition at once, calling on Saragosa, Tres Jacalas, Guadalupe, and San Ignacio for their quotas. These towns responded quickly and soon a hundred Mexicans were ready to take the field. A note was sent to Lieutenant Baylor at Ysleta requesting the rangers to go with the command. Baylor readily agreed to accompany the Mexicans, for he knew it was only a question of time before old Victorio would again be murdering and robbing on our side of the Rio Grande. A detachment of Company "C" had been in one Apache fight in Mexico and the Mexicans had a very kindly feeling for us. Lieutenant Baylor's detachment of ten rangers crossed the Rio Grande at Saragosa, a little town opposite Ysleta, and joined the Mexicans under Senor Ramos. We marched to the ranch of Don Ynocente Ochoa until the volunteers from the other towns came to Samalaejuca Springs. When they had done so the rangers moved down and our combined command amounted to one hundred and ten men.
After organizing their force the Mexicans sent Senor Ramos to inform Lieutenant Baylor that, on account of his experience as a soldier and as a compliment to the rangers, they had selected him to command the entire party. The lieutenant thanked the messenger, but declared, as the campaign was on Mexican soil to rescue or bury Mexicans, it would be more proper to appoint one of their own men commander, and that he himself would cheerfully serve under any leader so chosen. Senor Ramos returned shortly and notified Lieutenant Baylor that the Mexicans had selected Don Francisco Escapeda of Guadalupe as commander-in-chief and Lieutenant Baylor second in command.
This solution of the leadership problem pleased us, as there was an element among the Mexican party that might have caused friction. Old Chico Barelo, the pueblo cacique and principal commander of the mob that had killed Judge Howard, Ellis, Adkinson, and McBride at San Elizario, was with the expedition, and we had at our Ysleta headquarters warrants for the arrest of himself and many others, so we gave the old fellow to understand we were now fighting a common enemy and should act in harmony together. We did this more willingly, because we had learned that after killing Judge Howard and the others the mob wanted to murder all the rangers barricaded in an old adobe house, but had been dissuaded from this purpose by old Chico, who declared the rangers could only be killed after he had first been slain.
Leaving one wagon at the Ochoa ranch and taking three days' rations cooked and more in case of a siege, we went out in the night to avoid Victorio's spies. Don Francisco Escapeda with Lieutenant Baylor were at the head of the column. Sergeant James B. Gillett and eight rangers followed in Indian file, each ranger with a Mexican by his side, showing they looked on us as volunteers in the Mexican service. We rode out along the hard sand road beyond Samalaejuca and sent spies ahead to locate the Apaches if possible. Before we reached the Candelarios we halted behind some mountains to await their report, but they could learn nothing certain. It was a bitterly cold night and a few of us made fires in the deep arroyos. We moved on toward the mountains north of the Candelarios and reached them early next morning to find a large fresh trail about two days old going in the direction of Lake Santa Maria, but, for fear of some stratagem, we divided our men. One party took the crest south of the trail where the massacre took place while the other went to the right.
It was soon evident that the entire Apache band had left and that nothing remained for us but the sad duty of collecting the bodies of the dead Mexicans for burial. The second, or rescue party, had found the bodies of their kinsmen killed in the first ambuscade and had collected them and put them in a big crevice in the rocks. When they began to cover the corpses with loose stones the Indians, who had been watching them all the while just as a cat plays with a mouse before killing it, opened fire on the burial party and killed the last one of the unfortunate men. The saddest scene I ever witnessed was that presented as we gathered the bodies of the murdered men. At each fresh discovery of a loved friend, brother or father and the last hope fled that any had escaped, a wail of sorrow went up, and I doubt if there was a dry eye either of Mexican or Texan in the whole command.
While the immediate relatives were hunting for those who had scattered in trying to escape, we moved south to the main tank in the Candelarios. The ascent was up a winding path on the steep mountainside to the bench where the tank, one of the largest in the west, was situated. The water coming down from a height, and big boulders falling into the tank, had cut a deep hole in the solid rock in which the water was retained. Although Victorio's band of three hundred animals and two hundred or more Indians and our command had been using the water it could scarcely be missed.
We sent scouts to the left and right to make sure no game was being put upon us, for the cunning old chief, after sending his women and children off, could have hidden his warriors in the rough cliff that towered high above and commanded the tank of water and slaughtered all those below. We remained all day and night at this place. It was the most picturesque spot I had ever seen. We rangers rambled all over this Indian camp and found many of the Mexican saddles hidden in the cliffs and several hats, each with bullet holes in it. We also discovered two Winchester rifles that had been hit in the fight and abandoned as useless. I saw a hundred or more old rawhide shoes that had been used to cover the ponies' feet and dozens of worn-out moccasins. This party of Apaches had killed and eaten more than seventy-five head of horses and mules in this camp.
I followed a plain, well-beaten foot path to the topmost peak of the Candelario or candle mountain, so called from the candle-like projection of rocks that shot skyward from its top. The Candelario is in an open plain fifty miles south of El Paso, Texas, and from its top affords one of the grandest views in northern Mexico. To the south one could see San Jose and Carrajal, to the north the mountains at El Paso del Norte, to the west the mountains near Santa Maria River and Lake Guzman were in plain view, while to the east the Sierra Bentanos loomed up, apparently only a few miles away. On this peak old Victorio kept spies constantly on the lookout, and it would have been impossible for a party of men to have approached without having been seen by these keen-eyed watchers.