It was now the spring of 1850.  I was eighteen years old and beginning to think myself a man.  Uncle Kit asked me to go to the City of Mexico, saying that he owed a man there two hundred and fifty dollars, and wished to pay him.  He also told me that he would have Juan, the Mexican boy, accompany me on the journey, but cautioned me not to let any one know that I had money.  “For,” said he, “them Mexican guerrillas would kill you if they knew you had money about you.”

The reader can fancy two boys at the age of eighteen, starting out on a trip of eleven hundred miles, over a wild country, with no settlement except hostile Indians and Mexicans, who are worse than Indians if they know a person has money about him.  At that time there were no roads across the country in that direction; nothing but a trail—­a part of the way not even that—­and the whole country full of Mexican guerrillas—­or, as we would term them, Mexican robbers—­who made it a business to murder people whom they suspected of having money, and who would even massacre whole trains of emigrants, take what money they might have, their provisions and clothing, burn their wagons and drive their stock away.  The fact is that many of the depredations committed in those days, for which the Indians were blamed, were done by those fiendish Mexicans.

When the time arrived for starting and we were mounted, Uncle Kit, Johnnie West and Mr. Hughes came out to bid us good-bye.

Johnnie West said:  “Well, I am afraid I shall never see you again, for those Mexican guerrillas are worse than Indians, especially when they think a traveler has money about him.”

All this helped to put me on my guard, and I didn’t even tell Juan that I had money with me.

We started on our journey with two saddled horses and one pack-horse each.  We met numerous little bands of Navajoe Indians, but they being on good terms with the whites, gave us no trouble, whatever.  We also met numerous little squads of Mexican guerrillas, but they not suspecting two boys as young as we were with having money, did not disturb us.  Uncle Kit had sent the shabbiest looking horses along that he had, in order to deceive them.  Every band of Mexicans that we met on our trip would ask us where we were from, where we were going and our business.  I always told them that I was from Taos, and was going to the City of Mexico to see a friend, and they would pass on.

The first river we came to, Juan asked me if I could swim.  I told him that I did not know, as I had never had a trial.  We stripped down, tied our clothing about our shoulders and mounted our horses again.

I wanted Juan to take the lead and let me drive the horses after him, but he thought we had best ride side by side and let the pack-animals follow, so in case of accident we could help each other.  We made it across safe, and from this time on we never hesitated at a stream.

We were thirty-one days making the trip to the City of Mexico.