They robbed the Yumas of their wives and dominated the region as they pleased.
Captain Hobbs,* a mountaineer who was at Yuma in 1851, says: "The attack which wiped out this miserable band was planned by two young Mexicans, who had attempted to cross the ferry with their wives, and had them taken from them and detained by the Texans.

The Mexicans went down the river and the desperadoes supposed they had gone their way and left their wives in their hands.

But they only went far enough to find the chief of the tribe who had suffered so horribly at the hands of this gang, and arrange for an attack on their common enemy." * Wild Life in the Far West, by Captain James Hobbs.
By this plan twenty-three out of the twenty-five whites, including the master scoundrel himself.

Dr.Craig, were destroyed with little loss to the attacking party.

Hobbs calls this the best thing the Yumas ever did.
It took place only a month before Hobbs reached the ferry, and only two or three days before one of the periodical returns of United States troops, this time a company of dragoons under Captain Hooper, probably belonging to Heintzelman's command.