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missing wagon just coming into sight and beginning the descent. One of the Mexicans rode a wheel mule, while the other was walking ahead of the leaders. We had evidently judged our men wrongly, and when Grosvenor proposed that we should go on and come back with them, I objected, on the ground that the Mexicans, seeing us prepared for a long journey, would know at once that we had suspected them. We therefore decided to turn back, but taking another way homeward, we immediately lost sight of the wagon. After riding a few hundred yards we dismounted at a spring, where we rested for a quarter of an hour, and then rode home.

"As the afternoon passed away without the arrival of the wagon, we supposed it had broken down, and at twilight Grosvenor proposed that we should walk out and see what caused the delay. I took down my hat to go, but, being engaged in important work, concluded not to leave it, when my friend said he would go only to a point close by, and come back if he saw nothing. It was soon dark, and the two other Americans and myself sat down to tea. By the time we left the table, Grosvenor had been out about half an hour, and we concluded to go after him.

"Accompanied by Mr. Robinson, the bookkeeper, and leaving the other American to take care of the house, I walked along the Tubac road. We were both well-armed, and the full moon, just rising above the horizon behind us, lighted brilliantly the whole country. We had gone about a mile and a half, and were just beginning to ascend a long, barren hill, when, hearing the mewing of our house cat, I stopped, and, as the

cat came running toward us, stooped and took her in my arms.

"As I did so, my attention was attracted by her sniffing the air and fixing her eyes on some object ahead of us. Looking in the direction thus indicated, we saw near the roadside on the top of the hill, the crouching figure of a man, his form for a moment clearly defined against the starlit sky, and then disappearing behind a cactus. I dropped the cat, which bounded on ahead of us, and we cocked our pistols and walked briskly up the hill. But when we reached the cactus, the man was gone, though a dark ravine, running parallel with our road showed the direction he had probably taken. Of Grosvenor we saw nothing. Continuing our way at a rapid pace and full of anxiety, we began the long descent toward the arroyo, from which we had seen the wagon at noon. Turning a point of rocks about half-way down, we caught sight of the wagon drawn off from the road on the further side of the arroyo. The deep silence that always reigns in those mountains was unbroken, and neither mules nor men were visible. Observing something very white near the wagon, we at first took it for the reflected light of a campfire, and concluded that the Mexicans were encamped behind some rocks, and that with them we would find our friend. But it was soon evident that what we saw was a heap of flour reflecting the moonlight. Anxiously watching this and the wagon, we had approached within about twenty yards of the latter when we both started back-we had nearly trodden on a man lying in the road. My first thought was that it

was a strange place to sleep, but he was naked and lying on his face, with his head downhill. The first idea had barely time to flash through my mind, when another followed-it was not sleep, but death.

"As we stooped down and looked closer, the truth we had both instinctively felt was evident -the murdered man was Grosvenor.

"It would be impossible to describe the intensity of emotion crowded into the minute that followed this discovery. For the first time, I stood an actor in a scene of death, the victim a dear friend, the murderers and the deed itself buried in mystery.

"The head of the murdered man lay in a pool of blood; two lance wounds through the throat had nearly severed it from the body, which was pierced by a dozen other thrusts. A bullet-hole in the left breast had probably caused death before he was mutilated with lances. He had not moved since he fell by the shot that took his life; and as the feet were stretched out in stripping the corpse, so they remained stretched out when we found him. The body was still warm, indeed he could not have reached the spot when we left the house.

"I have seen death since, and repeatedly under circumstances almost equally awful, but never with so intense a shock. For a minute, that seemed an age, we were so unnerved that I doubt whether we could have resisted an attack, but fortunately our own situation soon brought us to our senses. We were on foot, two miles from the house, and the murderers, whoever they might be, could not be far off, if indeed the spy

we had seen had not already started them after us. Looking toward the wagon, I thought I could discover other bodies, but we knew that every instant of time was of great importance, and without venturing to examine closer, we started homeward.

"There was only one white man at the hacienda, and a large number of peons, and we did not yet know whether the murderers were Indians, or Mexicans who would probably be in collusion with our own workmen.

"If they were Indians, we might escape by reaching the house before they could overtake us, but if they were our Mexicans, we could hardly avoid the fate the employee at the house must already have met with.

"Taking each of us one side of the road, and looking out, one to the left, the other to the right, our revolvers ready, and the cat running before us, we walked quickly homeward, uncertain whether we were going away from or into danger. In this manner we went on until within a half a mile of the house, when we reached the place where the road lay for several hundred yards through a dense thicket-the very spot for an ambush. We had now to decide whether to take this the shorter way, or another, which by detaining us a few minutes longer would lead us over an open plain, where we could in the bright moonlight see every object within a long distance. The idea of being able to defend ourselves tempted us strongly toward the open plain, but the consciousness of the value of every minute caused us to decide quickly, and taking the shorter way, we were soon in the dark, close

thicket. As we came out into the open valley, the sensation of relief was like that felt on escaping untouched from a shot you have seen deliberately fired at you. Just before reaching the house, we heard Indian signals given and answered, each time nearer than before, but we gained the door safely, and found all as we had left it, the American unaware of danger was making bread, and the Mexicans were asleep in their quarters. We kept guard all night, but were not attacked.

"Before daylight we dispatched a Mexican courier across the mountains to the fort, and another to Tubac, and then went after Grosvenor's body. We found it as we had left it, while near the wagon lay the bodies of the two Mexican teamsters.

"We were now able to read the history of the whole of this murderous affair. The wagon must have been attacked within less than five minutes after we had seen it at noon, indeed while we were resting and smoking at the spring not four hundred yards from the spot. A party of Indians, fifteen in number, as we found by the tracks, had sprung upon the Mexicans, who seem unaccountably not to have used their firearms, although the sand showed the marks of a desperate hand to hand struggle. Having killed the men, the Apaches cut the mules loose, emptied the flour, threw out the ore, which was useless to them, and drove the animals to a spot a quarter of a mile distant, where they feasted on one of them, and spent the day and night. A party was left behind to waylay such of us as might come out to meet the team. When Gros

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