"Down there, more than a hundred miles south of the border. I thought we were safe. The mine was a good one. The hacienda was the prettiest place I could make of it. I thought I should never leave it. But the Apaches came one day—"
He stopped a moment and seemed to be looking at the tops of the western mountains.
"Did you have a fight with them?" asked Steve.
"Fight? No. I was on a hunt in the sierras that day. When I came home it was all gone."
"The Apaches?"
"The mine was there, but the works were all burnt. So was the hacienda and the huts of the peons and workmen. Everything that would burn."
"But the people!"
"Cattle, horses, all they could drive with them, they carried away. We won't say anything about the people, Steve. My wife was among them. She was a Spanish-Mexican lady. She owned the mine and the land. We buried her before we set out after the Apaches. I've been following them ever since."
"Were the rest all killed?"
"All. They did not even leave me my little girl. I hadn't anything left to keep me there."