all was, that Appleman rode into Mexico on that famous foray led by
Shelby, when the tottering throne of Maximilian was almost given new
foundation by the quixotic raiders. The story of that foray is well
known, and there is no occasion for repeating it. It need only be said
that when Shelby's men rode gayly home again, John Appleman was not in
their company. He had met an old friend in the turbulent City of Mexico;
had, with due permission, abandoned the ranks of the wild riders, and
had fled away to where were supposable peace and quiet. There was
something of cowardice in his action now. He had delayed his home-going;
he should have been in Michigan shortly after Appomattox, and now he was
afraid to face his vigorous wife and make an explanation. In Guaymas, on
the western coast, he thought peace might be. So he bestrode a mule, and
with his friend traveled laboriously to the shores of the Pacific, and
there with this same friend dropped into the lazy but long life of the
latitude.

If one had no memory one could do many things. Memory clings ever to a
man's coat-tails and drags him back to where he was before. There was a
tug upon the coat-tails of John Appleman. He was homesick at times. The
musky odors of the coast in blooming time often oppressed him. The
fragrance of the tropic blossom had never become sweeter in his nostrils
than the breath of northern pines. He wanted to go home, but feared to
do so. Mrs. Appleman was assuming monumental proportions in his
estimation. And so the years went by, and John Appleman, dealing out
groceries in Guaymas for such brief hours of the day as people bought
things, his partner relieving him half the time, hungered more with each
passing year to see southeastern Michigan, and with each passing year
became more alarmed over the prospect of facing the partner of his joys
and sorrows there. He was an Anglo-Saxon, far away from home, and the
racial instinct and the home instinct were very strong upon him.

With a tendency toward becoming a drunkard when he left home, John
Appleton had not developed into one, either during his long experience
as a soldier, or later in western Mexico. There was nothing
unexplainable in this. Certain men of a certain quality, worried and
hampered, are liable to resort to stimulants; the same sort of men,
unhampered, need no stimulants at all. To such as these pure air and
nature are stimulants sufficient. Whoever heard of a drunken pioneer and
fac