Before we had reached El Paso on our journey we were overtaken by Judge Baca, who had with him an interpreter. He asked me to please halt as he wished to talk with the prisoners. After a short conversation with the boys the judge asked me what was the reward for the capture of Abran Baca. I replied, "Five hundred dollars."
"If you will just let him step out in the bosque and get away I will give you $700," Judge Baca finally said with some hesitation.
Subsequently the judge raised the bribe to one thousand dollars, but I informed him there was not enough money in El Paso County to buy me off, so he returned to Ysleta and I continued my journey to New Mexico, feeling assured I had at least captured one of the Conklin murderers. On arriving at Socorro I was at once informed that I had Abran all right but my second prisoner was Massias Baca, a cousin of the murderers, but not incriminated in the crime.
I was treated royally by the citizens and officers of Socorro. They were delighted that one of the murderers had been captured and promptly counted out to me $250 as their part of the reward offered for the apprehension of one of the criminals. Colonel Eaton, head deputy sheriff of the county, issued me a receipt for the body of Abran Baca delivered inside the jail of Socorro County, New Mexico. This receipt, forwarded to the governor of the territory, promptly brought me a draft for $250 and a letter of thanks from his excellency.
Early in April, about one month after the capture of Abran Baca, I learned from Santiago Cooper, a friend that lived in Ysleta, that he had seen a man at Saragosa, Mexico, who, from the description, he believed to be Enofrio Baca. I told Cooper I would give him $25 if he would go back to Saragosa and find out to a certainty if the person he had seen was Enofrio Baca. A week later Cooper came to me and said the man at Saragosa was Baca and that the murderer was clerking in the one big store of the town. This store was a long adobe building situated against a hill with the front facing so that one riding up to the front of it would bring his saddle skirts almost on a level with the building because of the terraces in front of it made necessary by the slope of the hill. Enofrio was of florid complexion with dark red hair, which made it easy to identify him.
I kept this information about the murderer to myself for nearly a week while I pondered over it. I was anxious to capture Baca, yet I well knew from previous experience that if I caused him to be arrested in Mexico the authorities there would turn him loose, especially when the influence of wealthy relatives was brought to bear. Knowing he would follow the law to the letter I dare not take Captain Baylor into my confidence. Saragosa, a little town of about five hundred inhabitants, is situated about four miles southwest of Ysleta. While it is only about a mile from the Rio Grande as the crow flies, yet, because of the many farms and big irrigation ditches, it was impossible to enter or leave the town only by following the public road between Ysleta and Saragosa. It has always been the delight of border Mexicans to get behind an adobe wall or on top an adobe house and shoot to ribbons any hated gringo that might be unfortunately caught on the Mexican side of the river. I knew only too well from my own experience that I could not go into Saragosa, attempt to arrest a Mexican, stay there five minutes and live, yet I determined to take the law in my own hands and make the attempt.
I took into my confidence just one man, George Lloyd. If ever there was an ace in the ranger service he was one. I unfolded my plans to him. I did not have to point out the danger to him for he had lived on the Rio Grande ten times as long as I.
"Sergeant, that is an awful dangerous and risky piece of business and I will have to have a little time in which to think it over," he said when I talked with him.
The next day Lloyd came to me and said, "Sergeant, I will go anywhere in the world with you."