210 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 7, 1909. 
on to San Miguel; an’ just beyond that place 
we turned southwest an’ began to climb the big 
mountains. We were three days gettin’ to the 
summit, scramblin’ up fearful steep places, 
crawlin’ along the walls of deep canyons. Here 
we were once more in a game country; deer 
an’ wild turkeys everywhere in the big pine for¬ 
ests, an’ lots of bears—real grizzlies, lions, 
wolves an’ such like. There were parrots, too, 
thousands of ’em, squawkin’ an’ quarrelin’ an’ 
eatin’ pine cones. We got to the summit a little 
after noon of the third day an’ you talk about 
scenery; on top there it seemed as if the whole 
world was below us. On the one side the 
desert, an’ south, north, an’ west, mountains big 
an’ little, bare, an’ timbered, with here an there 
a slim, sharp needle of fire red rock cuttin’ into 
the blue. 
“There bein’ no water on top we moved on 
to the south end of the mountain an’ then down 
into a canyon running southwest. A half mile 
from the summit we came to a big cave in which 
was a good sized ruin of one an’ two-story 
houses, in all between fifty and sixty rooms. 
Down in front of the houses, gleamin’ white 
an’ still in good condition, were a number of 
graineries, eight to ten feet high, like those we 
had seen in the fore part of the trip. At the 
bottom of the canyon below them we found a 
good spring and began to unpack when Frijole 
begged us to go on a mile or so further. ‘This 
is an unlucky place,’ said he, ‘the ghosts of the 
ancient people gather here at night. I beg you 
to go on.’ 
“But some of the'packs were already off an’, 
anyway, ghosts an’ such like were of no account 
to us, an’ we camped. After supper we spent 
what time there was until dark exploring the 
old ruin. The whole floor of the cave was cov¬ 
ered with powdery gray dust a couple of inches 
deep and in it were the tracks of men who wore 
both boots and sandals. Some of the scattering 
footprints were very old, but one main trail 
they had made, straight into the rear part of 
the ruins, had been recently trodden and was 
hard and smooth. Frijole, who had come to the 
edge of the entrance with us, was more uneasy 
than ever when he saw that and begged us not 
to go in. ‘Did I not tell you that this is the 
home of ghosts?’ said he, ‘and now, see, there 
are their tracks. Do not go in there, else they 
will put their spell upon you. Let us- pack up 
and move further down the creek.’ 
“‘Frijole. you’re crazy,’ Pedro told him. 
‘Ghosts can’t make tracks, they just float around 
in the air.’ And with that we went in. The 
trail ended at the doorway of a house that had 
been cleaned out, the rubbish lying in two heaps 
before it, and there was a makeshift roof of 
poles and brush over it to take the place of 
the one that had fallen in maybe hundreds of 
years before. We went inside; it was so dark 
there—the dim cave light only coming in through 
the small doorway, that at first we couldn’t see 
a thing. Then we made out that there was some 
stuff piled in a corner. Irish lit a match; there 
were aparejos, cinchas, ropes, an’ a lot of sacks 
in the outfit. We fired the whole pile outside 
and dumped what was in the sacks; you ought 
to have seen that collection. There were wom¬ 
en’s silk an’ satin dresses, laces, back combs an‘ 
such like; men’s jackets an’ pants, gold an’ sil¬ 
ver embroidered; fine sombreros, gold an’ sil¬ 
ver mounted spurs an’ bridles; a couple of fine 
pistols with powder an’ ball; an’ then a good 
lot of dried beans, chili, corn, an’ tobacco. 
“ ‘This here stuff is plunder,’ said Irish. 
“ ‘You bet it is,’ said I, ‘an’ the gang that took 
it can’t be very far from here.’ 
“ ‘Down there at Casa Grande I heard of 
one, Antonio Aguilla by name, an’ called Red 
Hand because of his bloody deeds, who is said 
to hide out in this part of the range with his 
band of cutthroats,’ Pedro spoke up, ‘but I didn’t 
pay much attention. They say that he an’ his 
outfit are as bad as the Apaches; that they raid 
the rancherias in the valleys, drive off stock, 
plunder the houses, killing all who resist and 
stealing the women who take their fancy. This 
must be some of the stuff they have taken.’ 
“We allowed that it was. When we went 
into the cave Frijole had slipped back to the 
creek; I called to him but he didn’t answer. I 
called again an’ again; no answer at all. ‘Well, 
we’ll ask him later what he thinks about this,’ 
I told the boys, an’ we went back in to see 
what else we could find. Some of those old 
rooms hadn’t been entered, I guess, since the 
people who built ’em disappeared. The fine gray 
dust covered everything, walls, fallen concrete, 
an’ the few cedar rafters remaining in place, 
which we could plain see had been cut from the 
stump with stone axes. Night came on; we 
found nothing worth while of those old timers, 
an’ gathering up such of the robbers’ plunder 
as we fancied, went down to camp. Frijole 
wasn’t there; after an hour had passed an’ he 
didn’t show up we allowed he had quit us. We 
overhauled the outfit; he had brought nothing 
when he joined us, an’ had taken nothing with 
him. ‘It’s strange how superstitious these cholos 
are,’ said Irish. 
“ ‘Not at all,’ I told him, ‘they get it nat- 
ur’ly from the two races they are from—mean¬ 
ing no offense to you,’ said I to Pedro. 
“ ‘It may be more than fear of ghosts that 
has caused him to leave us,’ said he; ‘perhaps 
when he saw those tracks he knew who b^d 
made them.’ 
“ ‘That’s what,’ Irish agreed, ‘an’ what’s more, 
maybe he is one of the gang an’ has been lead¬ 
ing us to them all the time.” 
“‘An’ now has gone on to join ’em wherever 
they are,’ I allowed. 
“We put out the fire we had rebuilt an’ made 
down our beds some distance back from tlje 
creek. Nothing happened during the night. The 
burros were in plain sight down the canyon in 
the morning. When we went after them, about 
two hundred yards down we found where the 
robbers had camped; the ash heap of their fire 
place and other signs went to show that they 
had stopped there more than once, the last time 
only a couple of days since. A plain trail of 
horses led away from there down the canyon 
way. We packed up and followed it, Irish tak¬ 
ing his old job as scout an’ sneakin’ along ahead 
of the train. 
“After a mile or so the trail wound out of 
the canyon and down the steepest mountain side 
that I ever traveled with burros; there was 
about a half mile of it that just escaped being 
a cliff. Down near the foot of the big moun¬ 
tain we came to some adobe ruins that answered 
the description of the smelter for this lost Guy- 
anopa mine. They were sure very old; just 
heaps and rows of tumbled-in roofs and walls. 
You would hardly believe it when I say that 
the mountain side there was too steep for 
camping place; why the smelter should hai 
been built there I never could understand, 
was the smelter, all right, for we found a 1 
of slag, some charcoal an’ a few pieces of 0 
more silver than quartz. 
“Well, we had to have a camping place som 
where near while hunting for old trails ov 
which ore had been packed to the smelter, 
we traveled on down looking dor one and v 
didn’t find it until we got to the Aros Riv( 
all of two miles further, and along a migh 
bad trail. We unpacked on a high level poi 
between the river an’ the creek running out 
the cave canyon. Looking around a bit r 
found where the robber outfit had forded t 1 
river, going south, an’ in their tracks were t 
fresh foot prints of Frijole. That settled 
He sure was one of them. Beyond the rivu 
southward as far as we could see, the count 
was fearfully rough: big, steep an’ half bs 
lava mountains, canyons deep an’ black as nig 
cutting through ’em. We allowed there w 
but the one trail through it; that if the robb 
band came back, they would have to follow 
an’ we agreed to just pick out the right ki 
of a place on it an’ watch for ’em awhile, 
was the only thing for us to do: we could 
go prospecting here an’ there for the mi 
always with the fear of being ambushed, or 
least having our camp outfit an’ burros swip 
from us. 
“Our tents could be seen from a number 
places away out on the trail—as we proved 
crossing the river an’ following it for three 
four miles. That suited us to a T. They wo: 
come on bold enough to the last place—ab< 
a half mile from the river, an’ there lay k 
for a night or daylight attack on us, watch 
our movements the while. We chose a s; 
just over the ridge from this last place, wh 
the trail came up a steep slope that drop;. 
straight off into a gorge, an’ there we wail 
for ’em, caching ourselves in a bunch of m • 
rones about fifty feet above the trail, an’ wh: 
we had a good view of it for three or f: 
hundred yards. From there, too, we could I: 
a long stretch of mountain side a mile or > 
south that the trail passed over, but which is 
not in sight from camp. All in all, it wa 1 
bully place for an ambush. 
“For two days an’ nights we lay in the m- 
rones, one of us by turns going to camp / 
cooking an’ bringing out our grub, along v,i 
a supply of water. We planned how we she! 
do if the outfit came. At the word, given 1 
Irish, we were to fire; he at the first onil 
the second, an’ so on. ‘But no!’ said Pen, 
‘I claim the privilege of killing that Frijolin 
whatever part of the line he may be. I it > 
who listened to his talk, I who induced yoio 
have him come. And now that I think olt. 
he several times observed that we America's 
must be well provided with pesos, and I ! 
ashamed to tell him the truth—that we v* 
broke.’ * ‘ 
“It was about noon of the third day that e 
saw them coming, fifteen riders strung al? 
the trail on the far mountainside. It was ■' 
prising to see how fast their horses trav <1 
down the steep places; in almost no time D 
crossed the open place and disappeared in i £ 
timber. We waited for them to come in s !t 
again, an’ you bet we were some exed 
