A case of really cold-blooded ingratitude happened near Uvalde to a young fellow that I knew. There was an elderly American couple with one son, who had adopted a Mexican boy, bringing him up as a member of the family. The old man died when the boys were about nineteen years of age, leaving all he had to his wife. They had a small ranch on which they raised goats, besides having a few stands of bees. A short while after the father’s death they decided to sell out their Uvalde ranch and move to Devil’s River in North-west Texas, where they could get a larger ranch for their increasing flocks. They sold the ranch and were to move the next day by camp wagon, driving the goats, and taking the money (about $800) with them. The party was to consist of the mother, the son John, the Mexican boy Juan, and an old Mexican goat-herd who had worked for the family for years. The day before they were to start John went into town to get some supplies and the money, but before leaving the ranch he asked Juan if there was anything he could bring him out from town. Juan said he wanted a good bowie knife. When John, on his return, drove up to the house he handed the sheath-knife to Juan, whom he met out at the corral, and then carried the money and the things he had bought into the house. Amongst the things was a new rifle which he had bought at the last moment, and which he now loaded and put up on two nails over the lintel of the door: this act saved his life. For while he was inside, Juan went to the old goat-herd with the proposition that they two should go in and kill the two Americans, take the money, wagon, goats, and pull out for the border. “Every one will think they are gone, and there will be no hunt for them till we are safe,” he said. At first the old herder thought it was all a grim joke, but when he saw it was really meant in earnest, he started for the house to warn them. The younger man was too quick for him, however, and stabbed him twice in the back before he could reach the door of the house. His cry brought John to the door, where he was met by a stab in the chest from the Mexican, who reached there at the same time. John fell in the doorway, and Juan jumped over him and made for his adoptive mother. She, however, had seen John stabbed, and, being an old frontier woman, was quick to act and full of fight. As Juan came for her she grabbed an old shot-gun from its hooks on the wall, which he also had to seize with both hands to keep its muzzle pointing away from him, and so could not make use of his knife. The old woman was strong, and the fight was desperate for possession of the old gun. The grim joke of the thing, if joke there can be in such a tragedy, was that neither of them knew that the gun was unloaded and useless.