LAST SCOUTINGS
During the summer of 1881 Captain Baylor's company made several scouts out to the Sacramento and Guadalupe Mountains. These were reported to the Adjutant-General as scouts after Indians, but there were no more redskins in Texas, for the rangers had done their work effectively. These expeditions were, therefore, more in the nature of outings for the boys. And it was quite a pleasure to get away from camp in the hot Rio Grande Valley and scout in those high mountains covered with tall pine timber that teemed with game such as deer, bear and wild turkey. The plains between the Guadalupe Mountains and Ysleta contained hundreds of antelope, thus affording the rangers the best of sport.
Turning over the pages of my old scrap book I find this little announcement taken from the El Paso Times: "Colonel Baylor and twenty of his rangers have just returned from a scout in the Guadalupe Mountains, in which they killed twenty-five turkeys, fifteen deer and two antelope."
On one of these hunting expeditions we had with us George Lloyd, who had been a ranger under Lieutenant Tays when his company was first mustered into service in El Paso County. We camped at Los Cornuvas, and here Lloyd had had an engagement with Indians. He went over the ground and gave us an interesting account of his fight. He said there were but twelve men in the scout, including Lieutenant Tays. In marching from Crow Springs to Los Cornuvas, a distance of thirty miles, six of the rangers were riding nearly a mile ahead of the others and on approaching Los Cornuvas made for some tinajas (water holes) up in those mountains. They rode around a point of rocks and met face to face some ten or twelve Indians coming out from the water. Indians and rangers were within forty feet before they discovered each other's presence and paleface and redskin literally fell off their horses,—the Indians seeking cover in the rocks above the trail while five of the rangers turned a somersault into a friendly arroyo.
A ranger said to be a Russian nobleman and nihilist was killed early in the fight and buried on the spot where he fell. A headboard was placed to mark the grave, but the Indians soon defaced it by hacking at it with their knives whenever they passed the spot. Though he could have had splendid cover, the Russian stood upright according to the etiquette prevailing among British officers in the Transvaal and was shot through the brain.
In dismounting, Lloyd held on to the end of a thirty-foot stake rope that was tied around his horse's neck. Four of the dismounted scout wriggled their way down the creek and got away. In reloading his Winchester after shooting it empty Lloyd unfortunately slipped a .45 Colt's pistol cartridge into the magazine of his .44 Winchester and in attempting to throw a cartridge into his gun it jammed—catching him in a serious predicament. However, taking his knife from his pocket this fearless ranger coolly removed the screw that held the side plates of his Winchester together, took off the plates, removed the offending cartridge, replaced the plates, tightened up the screw, reloaded his gun and began firing. It takes a man with iron nerve to do a thing like that, and you meet such a one but once in a lifetime. Is it any wonder, then, that when I cast around for a man to go into Mexico with me to kidnap Baca I selected Lloyd out of the twenty men in camp?
Seeing that the Russian was dead and his companions gone, Lloyd crawled back down the arroyo, pulling his horse along the bank above until he was out of danger. The five rangers' horses, knowing where the water was, went right up into the rocks, where they were captured, saddles, bridles and all, by the Indians.
The redskins, as soon as Lloyd was gone, came out of hiding, took the Russian's Winchester and pistol and left. Lloyd was the only man of the six to save his horse, for the Indians, with their needle guns high up in the rocks, held Lieutenant Tays and the remainder of his force at bay.