"We had brought food with us, for we knew we might be more than one day
out, and when we had found the cattle we looked for a place to camp. We
headed the steers down the creek, and came out into this canon. And here
we saw the house, the same house, senor: so you see it is quite old, but
it was old then, too. We were surprised, for we did not know there was a
house there at all, and we had been born at San Fernando, and we thought
we knew everybody that lived this way as far as Ventura. It was nearly
dark, and there was no light in the house nor anybody about, though the
house did not look quite as if no one lived there. We should have liked
to use it to sleep in, but we thought some one must live there, and
might come in, so we made a camp on the creek. Just about here, where
your camp is, is where we slept.

"In the morning, after we had eaten, Pedro said he was going to look
inside the house. I was saddling the horses and did not go with him. In
a few minutes I heard him call, so I went to the house. Pedro was
standing at the door, and he looked white and frightened. 'There are
dead people here,' he said: 'they are all dead.' He went in and I went
in after him. In the back room there was a bad sight, a very bad sight,
senor: a lot of bones lying all about the room, and there were three
skulls among them. In the middle of the room was that box you saw, with
the lid open. There was a big bone, like a leg bone, lying right across
it, I remember. Zape! a bad sight that was.

"It must have been a long time since they had died, months, perhaps
years, two or three, from the look of the place and the bones. The
coyotes had been in, and nothing but the bones and some bits of clothing
was left. They had all been men, at least I think so, because there were
no women's clothes. In the box there were pieces of money, twenty or