south side of the Santa Cruz River, on the road from Tucson to Tubac,
called the Canoa. This wayside inn formed a very convenient stopping
place for travelers on the road. One day twenty-five or thirty Mexicans
rode into Tubac, and said the Apaches had made a raid on their ranches,
and were carrying off some hundred head of horses and mules over the
Babaquivera plain, intending to cross the Santa Cruz River between the
Canoa and Tucson. The Mexicans wanted us to join them in a cortada (cut
off), and rescue the animals, offering to divide them with us for our
assistance; but remembering our treaty with the Apaches, and how
faithfully they had kept it, we declined. They went on to the Canoa,
where the lumbermen were in camp, and made the same proposition, which
they accepted, as they were new in the country and needed horses and
mules. The lumbermen joined the Mexicans, and as they could easily
discern the course of the Apaches by the clouds of dust, succeeded in
forming an ambuscade and fired on the Apaches when they reached the
river. The Apaches fled at the fire, leaving the stolen stock behind.

The Mexicans made a fair division, and the mule trade was lively with
the lumbermen and the merchants in Tucson. With the proceeds of their
adventure the lumbermen added many comforts and luxuries to their camp
at the Canoa on the Santa Cruz, and travelers reveled in crystal and
whisky.

About the next full moon after this event, we had been passing the usual
quiet Sunday in Tubac, when a Mexican vaquero came galloping furiously
into the plaza, crying out: "Apaches! Apaches! Apaches!" As soon as he
had recovered sufficiently to talk, we learned that the Apaches had made
an attack on Canoa, and killed all the settlers.

It was late in the day; the men had nearly all gone to the mines, and we