Lieutenant Tays at once resigned as commander of the rangers, and Private Charles Ludwick was made first sergeant and placed in charge of the company until the governor of Texas could send a commissioned officer to take command of it. Had Lieutenant Tays held out twenty-four hours longer, a thing which he could easily have done, he would have escaped the disgrace and mortification of surrendering himself and his company to a mob of Mexicans, for within that time John Ford with a band of New Mexico cowboys swept into the Rio Grande valley to relieve the besieged rangers. On learning of the fates of Howard, McBride, Adkinson, Ellis, and Sergeant Maltimore, the rescue party raided up and down the valley from San Elizario to El Paso and killed several armed Mexicans accused of being part of the mob that had murdered the Americans. The present battalion of Texas Rangers was organized May 1, 1874, and in all their forty-six years of service this surrender of Lieutenant Tays was the only black mark ever chalked up against it. Afterward, when I arrived in El Paso with Lieutenant Baylor I had many talks with Privates George Lloyd, Dr. Shivers, Bill Rutherford, and Santiago Cooper,--all members of Tays' company--and most of them believed Lieutenant Tays had a streak of yellow in him, while a few thought he made a mistake in agreeing to an interview with the mob, thereby allowing himself to be caught napping and forced to surrender. Conditions in El Paso County were now so bad that Lieutenant Baylor was ordered into the country to take command of the ranger company. Before leaving to assume his command, Lieutenant Baylor was called to Austin from his home in San Antonio and had a lengthy interview with Governor Roberts. Baylor was instructed by his excellency to use all diplomacy possible to reconcile the two factions and settle the Salt Lake War peaceably. The governor held that both sides to the controversy were more or less to blame, and what had been done could not be undone, and the restoration of order was the prime requisite rather than a punitive expedition against the mob members. On July 28, 1879, Private Henry Maltimore and myself reached San Antonio from Austin and presented our credentials to Lieutenant Baylor, who thereupon advised us that he had selected August 2nd as the day to begin his march from San Antonio to El Paso County. In his camp on the San Antonio River in the southern part of the city the lieutenant had mustered myself as sergeant, and Privates Henry Maltimore, Dick Head, Gus Small, Gus Krimkau, and George Harold.