men who opened on them with a deadly fire. 
The utmost consternation prevailed among the 
Caranchuas. They were falling helpless on 
every hand In wild desperation the surviving 
ones began to kill their own women and children 
—probably in preference to having them 
captured. Strange to say, not one of the In¬ 
dians made any effort to escape by flight. The 
carnage went on till every Caranchua, but one, 
in the camp that had been so hilarious such a 
brief period before, was now silent in death. 
And who could fail to admire that intense 
courage of the Caranchuas that seemed to have 
not once even thought of flight? Some of them 
could have escaped if they only would have fled. 
Whatever we may say of their treachery to 
others than their own tribe, we must admit that 
they were intensely true to each other. 
The Texans remained at the camp till morn¬ 
ing came. Then they crossed the river and re¬ 
turned over the prairie to the O’Connor ranch. 
They took with them as prisoner the one re¬ 
maining Caranchua. He was a boy apparently 
about sixteen or seventeen years old, who dur- 
ng the massacre of the previous night appeared 
so inoffensive to the one confronting him that 
he would not kill him. 
As they were riding along on the prairie to¬ 
ward O’Connor’s ranch the question arose as to 
■vhat disposition should be made of the Indian 
aoy prisoner. One proposed that he be taught 
:o work and be made useful. Another sug¬ 
gested that in every case where an Indian boy 
more than about ten years old had been adopted 
it had been found that he had retained enough of 
his wild instinct to finally desert his benefactors 
and return to wild life, and that he would carry 
with him dangerous information of settlement 
conditions, liable to promote disaster. An¬ 
other suggested that he, being the last of his 
tribe, had no tribe to return to, and therefore 
would be likely to prove true. Then another 
suggested that he might go to some remaining 
tribe, and become a source of future trouble. 
The final conclusion was that it would be un¬ 
safe to keep him unless he could be transported 
to some distant region from which he would 
not be likely to return. But the transportation 
facilities of those times in Texas may be com¬ 
pared with those of the Orient three thousand 
years ago. 
Finally Jose suggested that as he had been 
an involuntary servant of the Caranchuas for 
some time, besides having been robbed of his 
canoe and his load of honey, that it might be 
an act of justice to himself if they would give 
the boy to him. He promised that the boy 
should never cause any of them any trouble, and 
he knew how to be the boy’s surety that he 
would never prove to be a future enemy. They 
all accepted the suggestion of Jose and agreed to 
turn the boy over to Jose. 
“Well,” said Jose, “now you all agree that 
he is my Indian.” They all called out, “Yes, 
he is your Indian, and you may do as you like 
with him.” 
“Well, then,” said Jose, “I will arrange the 
whole matter in a minute.” Jose’s shotgun, like 
all of the others, was loaded with heavy buck¬ 
shot. The boy was riding ahead of the party 
a few feet, looking forward with no intimation 
of what was about to occur. Jose leveled his 
gun at the boy’s heart, then fired and all was 
over. 
I do not know what afterward became of Jose. 
I seldom visited the O’Connor ranch without 
seeing Juan. He had his own quarters there 
and was provided with everything needed as 
long as he lived. O’Connor became a 
millionaire and died at an advanced age. He 
was one of the signers of the declaration of in¬ 
dependence when Texas began her struggle for 
independence from Mexico. 
These details of the Caranchuas were given 
to me during leisure hours of ranch life, by my 
old acquaintance and friend, Tom O’Connor, the 
leading actor, fifty-six years ago. The last one 
of the participants in that bloody drama of the 
Caranchuas has gone to the spirit land. I have 
often been requested to give these memories to 
the public. I do not know whether the world 
will be any better than if I had allowed them to 
slumber in oblivion forever, but now, after 
carrying, in my own mind, for fifty-six years 
these details of a past age of unwritten history, 
I give them at last to your readers. 
Wild Life in a City. 
Boston, Mass., June 20. —Editor Forest and 
itream : The wild life to be found in the midst 
)f a great city would amaze the average “city 
>erson” utterly unsophisticated in the lore of 
ield and stream, could he realize the extent to 
vhich it thrives. 
It is but a few years ago that a policeman, 
vhile placidly tramping through the woods of 
ix-hundred acre Franklin Park, Boston, saw 
chat he thought was a great dog skulking along 
n the shadow of some brush. Something about 
he animal made the officer uneasy, and when 
ie found it was slyly trailing him as he went 
long he became positively alarmed. Presently 
he animal, displaying a pair of glistening fangs, 
nade a dash for him. The officer fired quickly 
nd the animal tumbled over dead. It was an 
normous wolf. The beast was skinned and 
he pelt was on exhibition for a long time at 
he park police station. 
Franklin Park and the Jamaica Plain, Forest 
I ills and Roslindale section south of Boston 
ffer a choice haven for many kinds of wild 
nimals in spite of the streets running through 
he territory. Many foxes manage to eke out 
xistence from the efforts of sundry tenement 
oiks to raise chickens. Last winter a friend 
nd myself ran on to a fox at Savin Hill in the 
ery heart of Dorchester, a part of Boston. 
We set out for a walk around Savin Hill and 
came to an area off Savin Hill road where once 
had been one of the magnificent mansions of 
ancient Dorchester. While we were standing 
by the huge stone steps of what had been the 
front entrance to the mansion a fox sneaked 
out of a covert of tumbled down grape arbor 
and sloped off through the thick snow. First 
of all we could distinguish easily the pointed 
muzzle and the sharp ears. There was the 
peculiar, slippery, graceful gait. But, above all. 
there were the tracks, not like those of a dog, 
but one after the other in direct line. 
The animal had scurried away toward a sort 
of ravine and in a tangle of brush adjoining 
a neighboring yard where there were some small 
chicken sheds. As Dorchester adjoins the very 
heart of Boston and is shut off from the main¬ 
land by a bay, the fact of a fox in the midst 
of a city of brick and stone and trolley cars 
might seem almost unbelievable. A police officer 
to whom we told the story could hardly credit 
his senses. “Can a fox swim?” he asked. “Fie 
certainly can; that is, if he’s got to,” we re¬ 
plied. This animal had undoubtedly been driven 
out from the Blue Hill woods beyond Dor¬ 
chester Bay, and in his quest of food had ac¬ 
tually crossed on the half mile of mingled ice 
and open water to the mainland at Savin Hill 
When we found him he was merely waiting in 
the grapevine copse until later at night when 
he meant to make a sally on those chicken sheds. 
As further proof of the fact that we really 
did scare up a fox in our evening stroll, it came 
about that some days later a fox was shot in 
Dorchester. 
During the spring the general rise of water 
in all the brooks has revealed that wild muskrats 
are to be found about the brooks in the suburbs 
and in the very precincts adjoining the center 
of the city. For instance, in a tiny waterway 
that comes off Commonwealth avenue, not three 
miles from the State House, that is, midway 
between Harvard avenue and Allston street and 
running off southeast toward Holmes avenue 
and Verndale street, Brookline, a number of 
muskrats have been found this spring. I have, 
myself, proof that at least one was there, for 
his skin is a trophy in my home. 
A Franklin Park policeman said to me the 
other day: “I was coming along the path here 
through the bushes not long ago and I saw a 
strange looking little hump-backed animal cross 
the road and go in some bushes. I went back 
and looked around, and what do you suppose 
’twas? A porcupine. Yes sir; there he 
was, nestled up by the shrub and sizin’ up 
things.” 
The rattlesnake and copperhead still flourish 
in the Blue Hill region just south of Boston. 
Many a professional snake catcher plies his 
trade there during the season, gathering the 
