As he had nothing better to do, Froebel threw in his lot with the wanderers, and, in this manner, spent many happy months in seeing the country. But, to a man of his restless disposition, even this roving life became wearisome; he returned to Granada and there fell in again with two of the Yankee traders with whom he had arrived. For the next year or so he travelled with them, visiting almost every town in Central America; and at last decided to return with them to the States by way of Mexico. Mexico, as will be seen in a later chapter, was in a state of great unrest at this time (1853); and, in the wilder parts, it was unsafe for white men to travel without escort; but, as troops of soldiers were often scouring the country, the three strangers relied on being able to travel with one or other of these. They had a pleasant ride through Guatemala, visited the wonderful ruins at Uxmal in Yucatan: ruins nearly a thousand years old, that tell practically all that can be told of the civilisation of the ancient Mexicans; and at length entered upon the longer and more perilous portion of their trip. But fortune was more favourable to them than to the generality of Mexican travellers in those days; for they covered the long journey, of over a thousand miles, from the frontier to Chihuahua in North Mexico, without a single misadventure. While in this city, Froebel discovered, first that he was leading too uneventful a life for his constitution, and secondly, that his purse was now empty, for while his companions had been ants, he had been a cricket. It happened that the Mexican Commander-in-Chief, General Trias, was going north to put down a rising, and Froebel obtained from him the post of temporary transport-agent; he was to follow the troops with ten waggons and a hundred mules, and assist generally in the commissariat. Every day, from the time of starting, horrible reports of atrocities committed by the Apache Indians reached him. In one place, fourteen women and children had been slaughtered; in another, a flock of sheep had been stolen and the shepherds killed; while in a third, the prairie had been deliberately set on fire at a time when the wind could not fail to carry the flames to a cluster of huts, many of whose occupants were burned to death. Yet the soldiers could not so much as get a sight of the culprits, who, on their fleet horses, made nothing of covering fifty miles in a few hours. But one night, when Froebel and his muleteers were encamped some few hundred yards behind the main body, a volley of musketry sounded close at hand; and an attendant, who was in the act of handing the transport agent his supper, fell dead. The muleteers snatched up brands from the fire for torches, and, gun in hand, ran in search of the enemy.