Well, I awakened my brother, started him over the river for some Indian trailers, and then went to sleep. Two Indians came and lay down before my door till daybreak, and then called me and made an examination. They informed me that one lone thief had entered my room at the window and packed my property into a big round bundle, which he had lifted and dragged through the window. It was, of course, impossible to follow the thief’s tracks through the corral where so many men had been tramping the previous day, but the Indians had seen a few of his footprints near the window, and that was enough.
They started to walk slowly in a circle around my premises, going in opposite directions with their eyes fixed on the ground. Presently one of them whistled. He had found the trail. The Indians, and I with them, followed this trail for an hour, through many meanderings, and finally arrived at an old adobe house near where the Pierson Hotel now stands. The ground was dry and none but an expert trailer could see a single track. The Indians walked around the house in a circle, at some distance from it, and informed me that the thief was inside, and refused to act further because they feared they might be assassinated by some of his pals. I entered the house and found two Mexican women, who told me that no man was there or had been there. I searched all the rooms and found no one, and so reported to the Indians. They said: “He went in. He did not come out. He is inside.” Making a more thorough search, I found the gentleman concealed in one of the rooms under a stack of beef hides.
He was a noted thief of Juarez. None of the stolen articles were found on him or in the house. Our prisons were insecure and the courts were not much safer, and I turned the man over to the “boys,” who somehow convinced him that this was not a good locality for him, and he was heard of no more.
Several weeks later a little Mexican boy came to me greatly excited and told me that he had seen a corner of my Mexican blanket projecting from a little sandhill near the house where the thief had been caught. Every article which had been stolen was found tied in that blanket and uninjured. The Indians in going around the house to find any trail which might be going out had taken too wide a circle, or they would have found where the articles were buried.
ATTEMPT AT ASSASSINATION IN 1867—A MYSTERY.
In 1867 I lived in my home on San Antonio street, two blocks west of where the Court House now stands. There were two rooms opening on the street, one of which had a spare bed in it for guests and was never used by me. Back of this room, with a partition door between and with a door and window giving into the back yard, was my own private room—the room in which I habitually slept. My brother slept in another part of the house. Of course it was my habit to lock the door opening into the back yard, around which yard there was an adobe wall about six feet high.
I had some bitter enemies among the Americans at that time, some avowed and others secret, as I afterward learned.
On the night in question I retired as usual in my own room, and, strangely enough, on this night of all nights, must have neglected to lock the door. I awoke during the night and for some reason which I have never been able to explain to myself, a fancy seized me to sleep in the guest’s room. I went there, taking my pistol and candle, leaving my watch on the table and all my other belongings handy for any one who might come to take them, provided theft were the object. I supposed the back door to be locked, and closed the partition door between the guest’s room and the bedroom I had left. I awoke again with a consciousness that some one was in the room. I had not heard any sound. I could not possibly see anything, yet I was sure that I was not alone. I was wide awake, was not alarmed; my feeling was rather one of wonder.