Captain Baylor at once ordered me to take seven men and five days' rations and scout up the Rio Grande to the line of New Mexico for the bandits' trail, and, if I found it, to follow it up. I worked up the river but found no trail. Neither could I learn anything about any strange men driving stock through the country. My time was nearly up and I concluded to return to camp through a gap in the Franklin Mountains, some thirty or forty miles north of El Paso. We left the Rio Grande late in the evening, passed out through the gap and made a dry camp on the plains east of the mountains. Early the following morning we rode to a watering place known as Monday's Springs and stopped for breakfast. Here the boys discovered some horse and mule tracks. At first we thought nothing of this, supposing the trail had been made by some loose stock grazing near the water. From Monday's Springs a dim road led along the east side of the mountains to El Paso and we took this route home. Before we had traveled very far we noticed that some of the stock was traveling the same road, though even then I never suspected that these tracks might be the trail of the bandits for whom we were scouting. Finally we came to footprints made by some men as they adjusted their saddles or tightened their packs. It here dawned upon me that the tracks might have been made by the parties we wanted. I thereupon followed the trail carefully and it led me through what is today the most beautiful residential portion of the city of El Paso. The tracks led to a big camp yard where now stands the $500,000 Federal building and postoffice. In the description of the stolen stock we were told one of the mules carried a small Swiss stock bell. As I neared the wagon yard I heard the tinkle of this bell and felt sure we had tracked our quarry. We dismounted, and with our Winchesters cocked and ready for action, our little party of rangers slipped quickly inside the large corral gate and within ten feet of it we came upon three heavily armed men bending over a fire cooking their breakfast. Their guns were leaning against the adobe fence near at hand, so the surprise was complete. The outlaws rose to their feet and attempted to get their guns, but my men held their cocked Winchesters at their breasts. I told our captives that we were rangers ordered to arrest them and demanded their surrender. The robbers were undecided what to do; they were afraid to pull their pistols or seize their guns, yet they refused to hold up their hands. Finally one of the Baker brothers turned slightly toward me and said they would rather be shot down and killed than give up--surrender meant death anyway. I thereupon answered that we had no desire to hurt them, but declared that the least attempt to pull a gun would mean instant death to them all, and again ordered them to raise their hands. They slowly obeyed. I stepped up to them, unbuckled their belts and took their weapons.