a new set of similar papers with the interest compounded and added to the original debt.  Surely Don Guillermo was conceded to stand highest in popular estimation of any set of men who had ever come to the Rio Grande.  Had he not shown the people how to do business in a convenient and easy manner?  Under such a system nobody worried or labored very much and life was like a pleasant dream.  But alas! there has always been a beginning and an ending to everything under the sun, good or evil.  The awakening from an easy life’s dream was occasioned by a crushing blow.  It fell on the day of final reckoning, when Don Guillermo, my good uncle, thought the time was propitious to realize something tangible on sundry duly signed, sealed, and witnessed instruments.  There was a rumpus; neither earthquake nor cyclone would have caused a greater commotion in the community.  What, then, did this lying gringo mean by resorting to the trickery of the United States law courts and the power and services of the county sheriff?  Why did he wrest their property from them?  Had this gringo not always accepted their signatures as a legal tender for the payment of their debts?  Had he not told them time and again that their handwriting was better than gold?  If uncle had fallen into the clutches of these furious people, he would undoubtedly have been lynched.  But he had wisely disposed of all his property in the country and had left with his family for the States.  I remained in the service of the buyer of and successor to his business.

Soon after I began to feel lonesome, restless and dissatisfied, and that life among the natives was not as pleasant and satisfactory as formerly may be easily imagined.  In fact, the gringos were now cordially hated and envied by a certain class, the element of greatest influence among the people.  This produced a feeling of unpleasantness not to be overcome, and I resolved to emigrate to California, overland, by way of Arizona.  I longed for the companionship of people of my own race and wanted to see more of the world.  There was an opportunity to go to a mining town of northern Arizona, with several ox-teams which were freighting provisions.  The freighter, Don Juan Mestal, assured me that he was very glad to have the pleasure and comfort of my company and would not listen to an offer of remuneration on my part.  He said there was the choice of two routes; one road passed through the country of the Navajo Indians and the other road led past Zuhl, the isolated Pueblo village.  Don Juan said that he would not go by way of Zuni, if he could avoid it, as he was prejudiced against this tribe.  Not that they were hostile or dangerous, but he had acquired a positive aversion, amounting to abhorrence, for those peaceful people when he, as a boy, accompanied his father on a trading expedition there.  At that time he witnessed the revolting execution of a score of Navajos who had been apprehended as spies by the Zunis.  These unfortunates came to their village