Urbina, after questioning the captives for a little while, lost patience, concluded that they must be enemies at best and took no half measures. Life was cheap in northern Mexico in those days, judgments were swift and harsh, and Urbina was savage by nature. He took away the lives of these two with a wave of the hand. Immediate execution was their fate. Ambrose Bierce and the unknown Mexican were led out and placed against the wall of a building, in this case a stable. Faced with the terrible sight, the Mexican fell to his knees and began to pray, refusing to rise and face his executioners. Bierce, following the example of his companion, also knelt but did not pray. Instead, he refused the cloth over his eyes and asked the soldiers not to mutilate his face. And so he died. “I was much interested in the whole affair,” the nameless Mexican officer told Mr. Weeks, “and I asked my surgeon friend many questions. He did not know Bierce at all and did not know he was describing the death of some one in whom I was deeply concerned. But I had known Bierce well and asked the surgeon for detail after detail of the murdered American’s appearance, age, bearing, and manner. From what he told me, I have not the slightest doubt that this was Ambrose Bierce and that he died in this manner at the hands of the butcher, Urbina.” Following the reports of Mr. Weeks, the San Francisco _Bulletin_ sent one of its special writers, Mr. U. H. Wilkins, down into Mexico, to further examine and confirm or discredit the report of the Mexican officer. Mr. Wilkins reported in March, 1920, confirming the Weeks report and adding what seems to be direct testimony. Mr. Wilkins says that he found a Mexican soldier who had been in Urbina’s command at Icamole and who was a member of the firing squad. This man showed Mr. Wilkins a picture of Bierce which, he said, he had taken from the pocket of the dead man just after the execution had taken place. Still the doubt perseveres. No one has been able to find the grave of Bierce. The picture which the soldier said he took from the pocket of the dead man was not produced and has never, so far as I can discover, been shown. Personally, I find in this material more elements for skepticism than for belief. Would Ambrose Bierce have been carrying a picture of himself about the wastes of Mexico? Perhaps, if it was on a passport or other credentials. In that case General Urbina must have known whom he was shooting. And would a guerilla leader, with much more of the brigand about him than the soldier, have shot a man like Bierce, who certainly was worth a fortune living and nothing dead? I must beg to doubt.