ntention of this band to join Warfield's party on the
Arkansas, and engage in a general robbery of the freight caravans of the
Santa Fe Trail belonging to the Mexicans; but they had determined that
Chavez should be their first victim, and in order to learn when he
intended to leave Santa Fe on his next trip east, they sent their spies
out on the great highway.

They did not dare attempt their contemplated robbery, and murder if
necessary, in the State of Missouri, for there were too many citizens of
the border who would never have permitted such a thing to go unpunished;
so they knew that their only chance was to effect it in the Indian
country of Kansas, where there was little or no law.

Cow Creek, which debouches into the Arkansas at Hutchinson, where the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad crosses the historic little
stream,[23] was, like Big and Little Coon creeks, a most dangerous
point in the transcontinental passage of freight caravans and overland
coaches, in the days of the commerce of the prairies. It was on this
purling little prairie brook that McDaniel's band lay in wait for the
arrival of the ill-fated Don Antonio, whose imposing equipage came
along, intending to encamp on the bank, one of the usual stopping-places
on the route.

The Don was taken a few miles south of the Trail, and his baggage
rifled. All of his party were immediately murdered, but the wealthy
owner of the caravan was spared for a few moments in order to make a
confession of where his money was concealed, after which he was shot
down in cold blood, and his body thrown into a ravine.

It appears, however, that the ruffians had not completed their bloody
work so effectually as they thought; for one of the Mexican's teamsters
escaped, and, making his way to Leavenworth, reported the crime, and was
soon on his way back to the Trail, guiding a detachment of United States
troops in pursuit of the murderers.

John Hobbs, scout, trapper, and veteran plainsman, happened to be
hunting buffalo on Pawnee Fork, on the ground where Larned is now
situated, with a party from Bent's Fort. They were just on the point
of crossing the Trail at the mouth of the Pawnee when the soldiers from
Fort Leavenworth came along, and from them Hobbs and his companions
first learned of the murder of Chavez on Cow Creek. As the men who were
out hunting were all familiar with every foot of the region they were
then in, the commanding officer of the troops induced