Soon afterward the Safety Committee of Socorro, New Mexico, wrote to Captain Baylor saying, "We are informed by a reliable party that Jose Baca of Ysleta, Texas, has hired a Mexican to kill Sergeant Gillett. Steps have been taken to prevent this. However, he would do well to be on the lookout." Baylor at once went to Judge Baca with this letter, but the jurist denied in the most emphatic terms any knowledge of the reported plot. Also, there was a report current in both Ysleta and El Paso that a reward of $1500 had been offered for the delivery of Sergeant Gillett's body to the Mexican authorities at El Paso del Norte. Upon investigation I found that no such offer had ever been made, but for safety's sake I kept out of Mexico for several years. The kidnapping of Baca aroused much comment and gave me a deal of notoriety and, as I had anticipated, it was not long in bearing the fruit I desired,--promotion into larger and more remunerative fields of work. CHAPTER XIX LAST SCOUTINGS During the summer of 1881 Captain Baylor's company made several scouts out to the Sacramento and Guadalupe Mountains. These were reported to the Adjutant-General as scouts after Indians, but there were no more redskins in Texas, for the rangers had done their work effectively. These expeditions were, therefore, more in the nature of outings for the boys. And it was quite a pleasure to get away from camp in the hot Rio Grande Valley and scout in those high mountains covered with tall pine timber that teemed with game such as deer, bear and wild turkey. The plains between the Guadalupe Mountains and Ysleta contained hundreds of antelope, thus affording the rangers the best of sport. Turning over the pages of my old scrap book I find this little announcement taken from the El Paso Times: "Colonel Baylor and twenty of his rangers have just returned from a scout in the Guadalupe Mountains, in which they killed twenty-five turkeys, fifteen deer and two antelope." On one of these hunting expeditions we had with us George Lloyd, who had been a ranger under Lieutenant Tays when his company was first mustered into service in El Paso County. We camped at Los Cornuvas, and here Lloyd had had an engagement with Indians. He went over the ground and gave us an interesting account of his fight. He said there were but twelve men in the scout, including Lieutenant Tays. In marching from Crow Springs to Los Cornuvas, a distance of thirty miles, six of the rangers were riding nearly a mile ahead of the others and on approaching Los Cornuvas made for some tinajas (water holes) up in those mountains. They rode around a point of rocks and met face to face some ten or twelve Indians coming out from the water. Indians and rangers were within forty feet before they discovered each other's presence and paleface and redskin literally fell off their horses,--the Indians seeking cover in the rocks above the trail while five of the rangers turned a somersault into a friendly arroyo.