Chapter XIX: 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.

In the latter part of the summer of 1881 Captain Baylor moved his company of rangers from Ysleta to a site three miles below El Paso. While camped there the captain was warned by the sheriff of Tombstone, Arizona, to be on the lookout for four San Simone Valley rustlers, supposed to be a part of Curley Bill's gang. The robbers' names were given as Charley and Frank Baker, Billie Morgan and a fourth person supposed to be Curley Bill himself. These outlaws had stolen sixteen big work mules and four horses at a wood camp some twelve miles from Tombstone. They had also robbed a store and, assaulting the proprietor with pistols, left him for dead. A $500 reward was offered for the capture of the desperadoes and the stolen stock. The robbers' trail led down into New Mexico and it was believed Curley Bill and his gang were headed for western Texas, where they would try to dispose of their stolen stock at some of the railroad grading camps near El Paso.

Captain Baylor at once ordered me to take seven men and five days' rations and scout up the Rio Grande to the line of New Mexico for the bandits' trail, and, if I found it, to follow it up. I worked up the river but found no trail. Neither could I learn anything about any strange men driving stock through the country. My time was nearly up and I concluded to return to camp through a gap in the Franklin Mountains, some thirty or forty miles north of El Paso. We left the Rio Grande late in the evening, passed out through the gap and made a dry camp on the plains east of the mountains.

Early the following morning we rode to a watering place known as Monday's Springs and stopped for breakfast. Here the boys discovered some horse and mule tracks. At first we thought nothing of this, supposing the trail had been made by some loose stock grazing near the water. From Monday's Springs a dim road led along the east side of the mountains to El Paso and we took this route home. Before we had traveled very far we noticed that some of the stock was traveling the same road, though even then I never suspected that these tracks might be the trail of the bandits for whom we were scouting. Finally we came to footprints made by some men as they adjusted their saddles or tightened their packs. It here dawned upon me that the tracks might have been made by the parties we wanted.

I thereupon followed the trail carefully and it led me through what is today the most beautiful residential portion of the city of El Paso. The tracks led to a big camp yard where now stands the $500,000 Federal building and postoffice. In the description of the stolen stock we were told one of the mules carried a small Swiss stock bell. As I neared the wagon yard I heard the tinkle of this bell and felt sure we had tracked our quarry. We dismounted, and with our Winchesters cocked and ready for action, our little party of rangers slipped quickly inside the large corral gate and within ten feet of it we came upon three heavily armed men bending over a fire cooking their breakfast. Their guns were leaning against the adobe fence near at hand, so the surprise was complete.

The outlaws rose to their feet and attempted to get their guns, but my men held their cocked Winchesters at their breasts. I told our captives that we were rangers ordered to arrest them and demanded their surrender. The robbers were undecided what to do; they were afraid to pull their pistols or seize their guns, yet they refused to hold up their hands. Finally one of the Baker brothers turned slightly toward me and said they would rather be shot down and killed than give up--surrender meant death anyway. I thereupon answered that we had no desire to hurt them, but declared that the least attempt to pull a gun would mean instant death to them all, and again ordered them to raise their hands. They slowly obeyed. I stepped up to them, unbuckled their belts and took their weapons.

In looking over their camp I found four saddles and Winchesters but I had captured only three men. I mentioned this fact to the prisoners and they laughingly said one of their number had stepped down town to get a package of coffee, had probably noticed our presence and lit out. The two Baker boys and Billie Morgan were the men captured, and I asked if the missing man was Curley Bill himself. They replied it was not, but refused to tell who the fourth member of their party was. As we had no description of him and he was on foot in a town full of armed men we had no means of identifying him and he was never captured.

From the captured robbers we learned that they had run out of provisions, and for this reason they had not camped at Monday Springs. They had risen early and come into El Paso for breakfast. They declared it was a good thing for us that they had built their camp fire so near the gate, for had they been thirty feet from it they would have put up a fight we should have remembered for a long time. I replied that the eight of us could have held our own no matter where they had camped.

These robbers were held in our camp some ten days or more until the proper extradition papers could be had from the State Capitol at Austin, as they refused to be taken back to Arizona without the proper authority. They owned horses, which they gave to some lawyers in El Paso to prevent their being taken back to the scene of their crimes. We secured all the stolen stock--sixteen mules and four horses. The owners came and claimed them and paid the rangers $200 and the Arizona sheriff paid a like amount for the capture of the rustlers.

Our rangers became well acquainted with these thieves while we held them in our camp. The robbers admitted they were going under assumed names and said they were Texans but refused to say from what part of the state they came. The three of them were taken back to Arizona, tried for assault to kill and the theft of the horses at Tombstone and sent to the prison at Yuma for twenty-five years. They frequently wrote to our boys from there and seemed to hold no grudge against us for capturing them. The scout to capture these men was the last one of importance I took part in, for my work with the rangers was now growing toward its close.

In the fall of 1881 Captain Baylor received word from Israel King of Cambray, New Mexico, that a band of thieves had stolen a bunch of cattle from him and at last reports were headed toward El Paso with them. With a detail of four men I was ordered to make a scout up the river and into the Canutillos to intercept the rustlers. After traveling some ten miles up the Rio Grande we crossed the river into New Mexico to get on more even ground. Some eighteen miles above El Paso we found the trail of the stolen stock and followed it back across the Rio Grande into Texas.

While working our way along the trail through almost impassable brush we entered a small glade and came upon the stolen stock quietly grazing. On the opposite side of them a Mexican with a Winchester stood guard while his horse grazed nearby. The guard fired on us as he ran to his horse and we were compelled to run around the cattle to get to the thief. We fired our guns as we ran and this sudden noise frightened the loose pony so the fugitive was unable to mount. He was then forced to dive into the brush on foot. Knowing we could make no headway through the heavy tornilla bosque we dismounted and charged it on foot. The fleeing Mexican undertook to run through a muddy slough formed by back water from the Rio Grande. Here he bogged but, extracting himself, he backed out the way he had entered and found safety in the friendly brush. In running to where he was last seen we found his gun abandoned in the mud. Some twenty or thirty shots were fired at him and while none found the mark we captured his Winchester, his pony and thirty-six head of stolen cattle and gave him a scare that he will remember so long as he lives. The cattle were returned to Mr. King, who kindly presented us with $200 for their recovery.

We learned later that Frank Stevenson, a notorious rustler, whose rendezvous was in this Canutillo brush, had stolen these cattle and had left the Mexican in charge of them while he had gone into El Paso to effect their sale. As described in a previous chapter, I finally captured Stevenson and he was sent to the penitentiary for fifteen years for horse stealing. His capture and imprisonment broke up the Canutillo gang, and today, forty years after his arrest, the upper Rio Grande Valley is almost an Eden on earth with its fine apple and peach orchards, its alfalfa fields, big dairy herds and elegant homes. It is one of the beauty spots adjacent to the now fine city of El Paso. The Santa Fe Railroad traverses this valley, and I sometimes travel over it. As I sit in an easy seat in the Pullman and look out over the country I always reflect on the past and wonder how many of its present inhabitants know what a wilderness and what a rendezvous it once was for all kinds of cutthroats, cattle thieves and murderers.

While the rangers were camped near El Paso during the fall of 1881 I met Captain Thatcher, then division superintendent of the Santa Fe Railroad. He told me, because of the stage and train robberies in New Mexico and Arizona, the railroad and the Wells-Fargo Express companies feared that their trains would be held up near El Paso. To protect themselves they had, therefore, decided to place armed guards of three men on the main line of the Santa Fe to run between Deming and Las Vegas, New Mexico, and a similar guard on the branch from El Paso, Texas, to Rincon, New Mexico. Captain Thatcher had known me as a ranger and my kidnapping of Enofrio Baca out of Mexico had won me no little notoriety, so he now offered me a position with the railroad company as captain of the guard at a salary of $150 per month. I would be allowed to select my own men for guards and would be responsible for their acts.

I requested time to consider the proposition. While the position as captain of the railroad guard might not be permanent--might not hold out more than six months--yet the salary attached was exactly three times what I received from the State of Texas as sergeant of rangers. I discussed Thatcher's offer with Captain Baylor and finally prevailed upon him to give me my discharge. And on the 26th of December, 1881, after serving the State of Texas as a ranger for six years and seven months I laid down my Winchester with the satisfied consciousness that I had done my duty ever. My term of service embraced one of the happiest portions of my life, and recollections of my ranger days are among my most cherished memories. Among my dearest possessions, though preserved in an old scrapbook, is my discharge. It reads simply:

DISCHARGE

This is to certify that James B. Gillett, 1st Sergeant of Captain
Geo. W. Baylor's Company "A" of the Frontier Battalion of the
State of Texas, is hereby honorably discharged from the service of
the state by reason of his own request. I take great pleasure in
testifying to his uniform good conduct and gallant service in my
company.

Given at El Paso, Texas, this, the 26th day of December, 1881.

GEORGE W. BAYLOR

Commanding Company.

The personnel of Captain Baylor's company changed rapidly, so that at the time of my discharge there was scarcely a man in the company that had served longer than six months. There was, therefore, no wrenching or straining of strong friendship ties when I left the command, save only for my leaving of Captain Baylor. To part from him did, indeed, make me feel sad. My farewell and departure was simple and unimpressive. I sat down with my comrades for a last ranger dinner of beans, bacon, bread and black coffee. After the meal I arose from the table, shook hands with Captain Baylor and the boys, mounted my horse and rode away from the ranger camp forever. Yet, though my term of actual service was over and though I had garnered a host of memories and experiences, I had not quite finished with the rangers--I had not gathered all the fruits of my ranger-ship,--an appointment to the police force of El Paso in the vicinity of which city I had so often scouted.