ce.

We were living then in the old store building and the Chinaman was
making bricks about a quarter of a mile away with a Mexican whom he
employed. One day we found him dead and the Mexican gone. After that, as
was natural, we could never persuade a Chinaman to live anywhere near
the place. I later built a house of the bricks the Chinaman was making
when he met his death. The Mexican escaped to Sonora, came back when he
thought the affair had blown over and went to work for the railroad at
Sonoita. There he had a fracas with the section foreman, stabbed him and
made off into the hills. Sheriff Wakefield from Tucson came down to get
the man and shot him dead near Greaterville, which ended the incident.

In the preceding I have mentioned the railroad. This was the
Benson-Hermosillo road, built by the Santa Fe and later sold to the
Southern Pacific, which extended the line to San Blas in Coahuila, and
which is now in process of extending it further to the city of Tepic. I
was one of those who helped survey the original line from Benson to
Nogales--I think the date was 1883.

In future times I venture to state that this road will be one of the
best-paying properties of the Southern Pacific Company, which has had
the courage and foresight to open up the immensely rich empire of
Western Mexico. The west coast of Mexico is yet in the baby stage of its
development. The revolutions have hindered progress there considerably,
but when peace comes at last and those now shouldering arms for this
and that faction in the Republic return to the peaceful vocations they
owned before the war began, there is no doubt that the world will stand
astonished at the riches of this, at present, undeveloped country. There
are portions of the West Coast that have never been surveyed, that are
inhabited to this day with peaceful Indians who have seldom seen a white
face. The country is scattered with the ruins of wonderful temples and
cathedrals and, doubtless, much of the old Aztec treasure still lies
buried for some enterprising fortune-seeker to unearth. There are also
immense forests of cedar and mahogany and other hard woods to be cut;
and extensive areas of land suitable for sugar planting and other
farming to be brought under cultivation. When all this is opened up the
West Coast cannot help taking its place as a wonderfully rich and
productive region.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 3: The term "cowpuncher" is not common in Arizona as in
Monta