The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-04-07
STORY OF A CRIME.

Buenocampo district toward Tucsor we took the Rock Canyon route." saiC , Otto Harstadt of San Francisco 1T speaking of his mining experiences il Arizona when that Territory was new The Apaches were thick as pods in { peafleld in southeastern Arizona in thosi days, and they were bad all the time
 so our party of four men, all vel
 armed, was no bigger than it should have been for our safety. When or
 the second day out from our camp we
 struck into the Rock trail. which was
 little travelled, we saw the tracks of I
 wagon and team of horses which had
 passed about day ahead of us. Later
 along we came to where 1t had halted
 at noon and at night. and We saw by
 the footprints and other signs that only
 one man was with the outfit. At
 about noon of the second day after
 striking the traiIgW came to where the
 teamster, in making his nooning for
 the day before, had been joined by an- other man whp had come on foot from the direction os some wooded hills in
 the east. That the newcomer was not
 an Indian or a Mexican of the hum
 bier class, was plain from the fact that he wore boots and not moecasins, and | the shape of the boots, as indicated
 in the tracks particularly at the heels,
 made it evident to our minds that he must recently have come from town. 1 The teamster had taken him into his wagon and they had travelled on in company. had camped together that
 might and had gone on together next
 morning We had kept day behind | them, regulating our stopping by the l facilities for obtaining grass and water | but being in hurry to get to Tucson, we on the third night, made forced l march that shortened the distance be- tween us and the outfit ahead by one | half. Making our start as usual the
 next morning, we at noon came in
 Rock Canyon upon the place where the two men with the wagon had camped the night before. 'le
 "A man traveling the Arizona trails
 in those days, thirty years ago, learned
 to take notice and to read every sign
 on the earth and in the air An hour
 before we arrived at the place we had
 spoken to one another of the way the
 buzzards were gathering from every
 quarter Of the Aky and dropping one
 by one, down intp the canyon. We had an instinct that there might be some- thing wrong with the wagon outfit, our first thought naturally being of Apaches' work But when we got to the place we saw that the wagon had started away that morning. seemingly with everything packed on board, and cfu nf Tnlions to hn seen around It did not take more than brief examination, however, to show that there had been foul play on the spot only a few hours before. There were blood marks on the ground over which earth had been scraped and trampled, showing that care had been taken by some one to prevent their be- ing detected by whoever might come afterward on the trail The settling down of the buzzards and the trail of blood and bits of torn garments through the bushes, which we present ly found were guides enough after that and we found the teamster's body where it had been dragged by his mur- derer, the man whom he had taken into his wagon two days before. He had been shot in the back at close quarters, apparently after the horses had been harnessed and everything | made ready for the start in the morn- ing.
 This was black murder, but there | was nothing for us to do in the mat ter save bury the victim, mark the | grave and place big stones on 1t to keep foxes and coyotes from digging | up the remains.
 'The murderer had clear six hours start, with an extra horse for re- mount if pursued and forced to leave the wagon behind, so there was no hope of overhaulng him. We could do nothing more than hurry on and report the case at the first settlement we came to, and we made our start after ] incoming as short as we could make It with what we had to do. An hours ride brought us out into view of the thirty mile wide stretch of plain be- yond the canyon and every one of us ,lutched for his shoulders as the first nan to spy 1t shouted out 1njuns"
 They were not very near-a band If twenty or twenty-five mounted { Apaches some five miles out on the )lain, riding, not toward us, but for he distant mountains beyond the ,lain,. With our field glass we could lee them very distinctly, while they ,ould not discern us against the rocks z md shadows of the canyon walls They were driving two loose horses and we're travelling in haste. One of our { ,arty climbed up among the rocks to a ,oint where he could command a wider / jew of the plain with the glass and ftef looking intently a minute he aled out to the rest of us: |
 :" There's a wagon stalled off to the 7 orth no team in sight, and q dead nan on the ground alongside it. It's 3 he Apaches' work, sure enough and I f elieve they've got the man that did he killing. We all climbed and looked through he glass at the wagon and dead man nd the story was as plain as writing } our eyes. The murderer had not / one far with his booty. What the -ory was Of chase and attack we )uld not tell, except to surmise that li le Apaches, seeing him coming on the lain, had waited among the low (f lountains in the range cut through S y Rock Canyon, and had dashed out z l him as he came opposite. After, \