Besides, our principal guide, Agustin Rios, became dangerously ill.

He was sixty-five years old, and I decided to send him back.
When I hired him I had not been aware that he was afflicted with an incurable disease, and that on this account his wife had tried to keep him at home.

Now he had to be carried on a sort of palanquin constructed for the occasion, and I regret to state that he died before he reached his home in Nacori.

He had been a reliable man, and his loss was very deplorable.
Before he left he gave me directions for finding a rather large ancient pueblo, which he had come across once in the sierra, and of which he frequently spoke to us.

However, our search for it proved fruitless, and I am inclined to think that it would probably not have differed much from those we found later on Bavispe River.
From now on I made it a rule to send three or four men about two days ahead of the main body of the expedition, to make a path.