In 1865 I lived, a bachelor, in a house which is still standing on the
lot at the corner of San Francisco and Chihuahua streets. My sleeping
room was in the southeast corner of the house with a window opening on
the back yard (corral) to the south. My brother, E. A. Mills, and a
negro servant slept in the back rooms of the house.
One day a number of Mexicans were carrying and stacking adobes in that
back yard and of course had left five thousand foot tracks. That night I
locked the front door of my room as usual and went to visit some
friends. On my return to my room about midnight I unlocked the door and
struck a light, to find that everything movable which I had left in the
room had been removed. Every article of clothing, bric-a-brac, a Mexican
blanket worth $100, and all such articles as a gentleman keeps in his
private room were gone. If any reader has had a similar experience he
knows what a foolish, puzzled feeling comes over him on making the
discovery; he first thinks he has gotten into the wrong room, then that
somebody has played a practical joke on him, and must be at that moment
watching and laughing at him. Suddenly the unpleasant truth flashes upon
him that he has been robbed. Such was my experience.
Well, I awakened my brother, started him over the river for some Indian
trailers, and then went to sleep. Two Indians came and lay down before
my door till daybreak, and then called me and made an examination. They
informed me that one lone thief had entered my room at the window and
packed my property into a big round bundle, which he had lifted and
dragged through the window. It was, of course, impossible to follow the
thief’s tracks through the corral where so many men had been tramping
the previous day, but the Indians had seen a few of his footprints near
the window, and _that was enough_.
They started to walk slowly in a circle around my premises, going in
opposite directions with their eyes fixed on the ground. Presently one
of them whistled. He had found the trail. The Indians, and I with them,
followed this trail for an hour, through many meanderings, and finally
arrived at an old adobe house near where the Pierson Hotel now stands.
The ground was dry and none but an expert trailer could see a single
track. The Indians walked around the house in a circle, at some distance
from it, and informed me that the thief was inside, and refused to act
further because they feared they might be assassinated by some of his
pals. I entered the house and found two Mexican women, who told me that
no man was there or had been there. I searched all the rooms and found
no one, and so reported to the Indians. They said: “He went in. He did
not come out. _He is inside._” Making a more thorough search, I found
the gentleman concealed in one of the rooms under a stack of beef hides.
He was a noted thief of Juarez. None of the stolen articles were found
on him or in the house. Our prisons were insecure and the courts were
not much safer, and I turned the man over to the “boys,” who somehow
convinced him that this was not a good locality for him, and he was
heard of no more.
Several weeks later a little Mexican boy came to me greatly excited and
told me that he had seen a corner of my Mexican blanket projecting from
a little sandhill near the house where the thief had been caught. Every
article which had been stolen was found tied in that blanket and
uninjured. The Indians in going around the house to find any trail which
might be going out had taken too wide a circle, or they would have found
where the articles were buried.
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