The manager of the
Corralitos Ranch, which I was then engaged in examining, was Adolph
Munzenberger. The previous Winter he had lived in Musquiz, as
Superintendent of the Cedral Coal Mines. While there, however, I had
not met him or his family.

One evening at dinner, Mrs. Munzenberger asked me, "Have you ever,
perchance, been in Coahuila?"

"Yes," I answered, "I spent several weeks in the State last Winter."

"And how did you like it?" she asked.

"Well, I must say I found rather too many thrills there for comfort," I
replied. And when I mentioned affair on the sierra south of Musquiz,
she broke in with:

"Indeed! And you are the crazy gringo Don Abran tried to stop from
going into the desert! We heard of it; in fact, it was the talk of the
town, and no one expected you would ever get back. And by the way, it
was a contraband _conducta_ owned by friends of ours who attacked you
back of the town! Droll, is it not?"

"Perhaps--now," I doubtfully answered.

"Yes," Mrs. Munzenberger continued, "they were on their way to
Monclova. The night before the attack, the wife of the owner (one of
the leading merchants of the town) took me to their camp in the brush
near town to see their goods; and a lovely lot of American things they
had."

"But why did they attack us?" I queried.

"Well, you see, it was this way," she explained. "The smugglers broke
camp long before dawn, and started south over the same trail by which
you were approaching; they wanted to get over the summit before the
Lipans or guards were likely to be stirring, for it was a point at
which _conductas_ were often attacked. But shortly after sunrise, and
just as they advance guard reached the summit, they discovered your
party ascending, and, mistaking your uniformed soldiers for guardias,
the leader lined a dozen of his men along the ridge, and opened on you,
while his _mayordomo_ rushed the pack mules of the _conducta_ back down
the trail they had come. Early in the fight they discovered you wore a
party of _gringos_, and not guards, and decamped as soon as their
_conducta_ had time to reach a point where they could leave the rail.

"Had their goods not been at stake, they would have wiped you out, if
they could, for the leader's brother got shot in the head of which he
died the same day. Indeed, when the two men you left behind started to
leave the country, he had planned to follow and kill them, but luckily
Don Abran heard of it, and re