and were all in retreat. This decided Sawyer, who said:

"Boys, the jig is up and the best thing we can do is to get across the
river and into the United States."

That night they crossed the Rio Grande in an old tub of a boat that they
expected would go to the bottom every moment and landed in safety at
Brownsville, on the American shore. Here Paul wrote letters home and
requested his father to send him a remittance to Galveston. With
the little money they bad, mustangs and provisions were purchased and
they started on a long ride to Corpus Christi. It was a wild journey
through the chaparral, over the burnt and dried grass of the prairie,
across swamps and rivers; but they made the two hundred miles in eight
days. Here they separated. While his companions sought employment with
the ranchers, Paul for consideration of his mustang, rifle and
revolver, induced the captain of a coaster to give him passage to
Galveston. He arrived in Galveston and found himself without a cent. He
opportunely remembered that his father had a friend there in the person
of ex-Governor Lubbock, whom he hunted up. He was cordially received by
the Governor, who not only supplied him with all he wanted, but
insisted upon his remaining in his house until his correspondence should
arrive. In ten days the long looked for letter and remittance came to
hand, and Paul lost no time in securing a passage on the steamer Haridan
for New Orleans, and from there to New York, where he arrived June
2d, 1867.

CHAPTER V.

He was warmly received by his family and found that his father had a
smug sum to his credit in the bank. Paul was now in his nineteenth
year; he was strong and so bronzed with the sun that he looked fully
twenty-five. For some time after his home coming he was unsettled what
to do, and once or twice was on the point of investing in a new outfit
and re-embarking for the West Indies. But the pleadings of his
mother to abandon the wandering life he liked so well, and to settle
down to a steady business prevailed, and his father assisted him to open
a store in Philadelphia for the sale of curiosities and Oriental goods.
A branch at Cape May was also opened. It was very successful and
disposed of large quantities of goods to the visitors there. For two
years he successfully pursued this mercantile life and was establishing
a good business; but while at Cape May during the summer time his old
love for the water dre