328 SANTA CRUZ TO 
emigrants in advance of a train of wagons, which our 
people did not see, or they would have caused no 
alarm. Perceiving the stampede they had caused, and 
hearing the yelling of the arrieros, they had hastened 
forward to quiet our fears. 
This party consisted of thirty-five persons, men, 
women, and children, with mule-wagons and _ horses, 
from Arkansas and Texas. Their wagons had turned 
off to the left to a spring, where there was better water 
than in the stream two miles below us. After spending 
an hour in giving us some interesting news from our | 
friends at El Paso and on the Rio Grande below that 
place, they took leave of us and rejoined their party. 
They had seen a party of forty or more Apaches two 
days before near the Guadalupe Pass. 
August 2d. We moved off at seven; the morning 
clear and pleasant, and with the satisfaction of having 
dry tents and clothing once more; for we had escaped 
the rain last night, probably from being so far from 
the mountains. Our course was still east, across the 
plain, to a high conical mountain capped with a rocky 
bluff. The road was excellent until we reached the 
base of this mountain, when it became hilly, though 
not bad. After winding among these hills for three 
or four miles, we again emerged into a broad plain, in 
the middle of which stood the ruined hacienda of San 
Bernardino. We now descended again very gradually 
over a plain filled with mezquit chapporal, and six or 
seven miles further brought us to the hacienda. Dis- 
tance travelled, eighteen miles. i 
Just as we were entering this plain, we met Colo- 
nel Garcia, with a detachment of two hundred Mexi- 
