through Guadalupe canyon and came on
northward to the Double Dobe Ranch. Here they left the cattle with a
man to hold them, while they rode over to Curly Bill's place, not far
distant.

But the Mexicans had been suffering from this sort of depredations
until patience had ceased to be a virtue and a band of thirty dusky
vaqueros were following the trail of those stolen longhorns. On the
afternoon of July 26 the man who was riding herd caught sight of the
steep-crowned sombreros coming out through the mirage on the flats to
the south. He waited only long enough to satisfy himself as to the
nationality of the riders, then clapped spurs to his pony and raced to
Curly Bill's place.

It took the rustlers some time to saddle up. When they arrived at the
Double Dobe they found nothing of their former prizes but a fresh
trail. They made the best speed they could, but the Mexicans were
"shoving those cattle hard," as the old-timers say. They had a good
lead and they held it clear to Guadalupe canyon. The running fight
that followed lasted half-way through the gorge. The men from Sonora
were seasoned hands at Indian warfare, and they had no mind to give
up their beef. They left a small rear-guard, who fell back slowly
from rock to rock while their companions urged the longhorns to a
run. The shouts of "Toro! Toro! Vaca! Vaca"! mingled with the
crackling of the rifles. And when the rustlers finally routed the
stubborn defenders to chase the herders on through the ravine and
reassemble the panic-stricken stock, they took back three dead men
across their saddles. They buried the bodies at the Cloverdale
ranch and so started a lonely little boot-hill whose headboards
showed on the edge of the mesa for many years.

There came now to the old Guadalupe canyon trail a new traffic. Mexican
smugglers who had formerly been crossing the boundary at the southern
end of the San Pedro valley shifted their route hither and traveled
northward to Silver City. They were hard men, accustomed to warring
with the Apaches, bandits, and border officers. They banded together
in formidable outfits to guard the dobie dollars which loaded down the
aparejos during the northern journey. And Curly Bill's companions saw
them passing on more than one occasion: a scuffle of hoofs, a haze of
dust, through which showed the swarthy faces of the outriders under
the great sombreros--and, what lingered longest in the memories of
these hard-faced men of the Animas,