The men I had hired before crossing the border did not work at all well with the Mexicans.  They generally considered themselves vastly superior to the latter, whom they did not recognise as “white men.”  Personally, I preferred the Mexicans, who were obedient, obliging, and less lawless than the rough, mixed-white citizens of the American Southwest.  As an illustration of the moral status of the frontier population, I may relate that when about sixty miles south of the border, a custom-house official stationed in the neighbourhood insisted upon examining all my baggage, which, of course, would have involved a lot of trouble.  He was neither worse nor better than other custom officers, who seem to exist only to annoy people, and by the exertion of a little patience I succeeded in settling the matter satisfactorily.  But one of my foremen, who had noticed my annoyance, came up to me and asked if I desired “to get rid” of him; if I did, said he, he knew how he could serve me so that nothing more would be heard from the Mexican!

I gradually weeded out this unscrupulous element among the men, and replaced most of the American with Mexican muleteers, who are far superior in that particular line of business.  In hiring them, only one precaution had always to be observed:  never to accept one unless he had a good recommendation from his village authorities or some prominent man in the neighbourhood.

The first village of any importance we passed was Fronteras.  It is built on the summit and slopes of an elevated plateau and looks extremely picturesque at a distance.  Seen close, however, it turns out to be a wretched little cluster of adobe, or sun-dried brick, houses.  Not only the town itself, but also all the ranches in the neighbourhood are erected on elevations, a precaution from former days against the bloodthirsty Apaches.

Not so very long ago Fronteras was quite an important place, numbering, it is said, some 2,000 inhabitants.  But the Apaches, by their incessant attacks, made the life of the villagers so miserable that the place became depopulated.  Once it was even entirely abandoned.  Many stories of the constant fights with these savages are related by the survivors of those struggles.  Never was it safe in those days to venture outside of the town limits.  Yet the conflicts did not always end in one way, and the Mexicans sometimes got the better of the raiders, although it may be doubted whether the methods by which these results were brought about would come under the rules of modern warfare.

One bright moonlight night an old man, who had himself taken part in many an Apache fight, led me to a deep gorge where seven Apaches once met their doom.  The story he told was as follows: