, prospecting whenever the frequently raiding Apaches left him
and his mates time for work. Indeed, it was Thornton who discovered
and first opened the Gallup coal field, and he held it until Victoria
ran him out. During this time he was in eight desperate fights--the
only man to escape from one of them; but out of them he came unscathed,
and trained to a finish in every trick of Apache warfare.

At San Antonio we were met by Sam Cress, who for the last four years
had been foreman of my Deadman Ranch. Cress was born on Powell River,
Virginia, but had come to Texas as a mere lad and joined a cow outfit.
He had really grown up in the Cross Timbers of the Palo Pinto, where,
in those years, any who survived were past masters not only of the
weird ways and long hours and outlaw broncos, but also of the cunning
strategy of the Kiowas and Comanches who in that time were raiding
ranches and settlements every "light of the moon." Cress was then
twenty-five--just my age--and one of the rare type of men who actually
hate and dread a fight, but where necessary, go into it with a jest and
come out of it with a laugh, as jolly a camp-mate and as steady a
stayer as I ever knew. Charlie Crawford, a half-breed Mexican, taken
on for his fluency in Spanish, completed our outfit. Two mornings
later the Mexican National Express dropped us at the Lampasos depot
about daylight, from which we made our way over a mile of dusty road
winding through mesquite thickets to the Hotel Diligencia, on the main
plaza.

A norther was blowing that chilled us to the marrow, and of course,
according to usual Mexican custom, not a room in the hotel was heated.
The best the little Italian proprietor could do for us was a pan of
charcoal that warmed nothing beyond our finger tips. As soon as the
sun rose, we squatted along the east wall of the hotel and there
shivered until Providence or his own necessity brought past us a peon
driving a burro loaded with mesquite roots. We bought this wood and
dumped it in the central patio of the hotel and there lighted a
campfire that made us tolerably comfortable until breakfast.

Ignorant then of Mexico and its customs, I had fancied that when a
proper hour arrived for a call on the _Alcalde_, Don Nemecio Garcia, I
should have a chance to warm myself properly and had charitably asked
my three mates to accompany me on the visit. But when at ten o'clock
Don Nemecio received us in his office, we found him tramping