remaining apart and never mixing with others. Many of these can still be found living in towns and villages along the Rio Grande. They are known as Pueblos, and are much more honest and moral than the mixed race. New Mexico was almost an unknown country to the people of the United States until the last half century. Many of the pioneer traders to that land were from Howard County, Missouri, where I was born, and I remember when a child hearing numbers of them on their return recount their exploits and strange experiences. I felt as if I could not wait to be a man before going to see these strange countries and peoples. Well do I remember when studying geography at school and seeing "unexplored region" marked on the map, feeling a contempt for the author and thinking if I were a man I would go and see what there was in that land and not mark it unexplored. These New Mexicans were a venturesome people. They penetrated through to California; trails were opened that were a marvel of pioneering. They were doubtless assisted by the natives. The Jesuits were leaders in most of these moves. There is hardly a tribe of Indians in the Rocky Mountains but what has a tradition of the priests having been among them. Sometimes these priests gained quite an influence with the wild tribes. At one time the Uintahs were their friends, but a break occurred and the priests were killed. Thus we find that the people of New Mexico at the time I am writing of them, in 1851, were making annual trips, commencing with a few goods, trading on their way with either Navajoes or Utes (generally with the Navajoes) for horses, which they sold very cheap, always retaining their best ones. These used-up horses were brought through and traded to the poorer Indians for children. The horses were often used for food. This trading was continued into Lower California, where the children bought on the down trip would be traded to the Mexican-Californians for other horses, goods or cash. Many times a small outfit on the start would return with large herds of California stock. All children bought on the return trip would be taken back to New Mexico and then sold, boys fetching on an average $100, girls from $150 to $200. The girls were in demand to bring up for house servants, having the reputation of making better servants than any others. This slave trade gave rise to the cruel wars between the native tribes of this country, from Salt Lake down to the tribes in southern Utah. Walker and his band raided on the weak tribes, taking their children prisoners and selling them to the Mexicans. Many of the lower classes, inhabiting the southern deserts, would sell their own children for a horse and kill and eat the horse. The Mexicans were as fully established and systematic in this trade as ever were the slavers on the seas and to them it was a very lucrative business. CHAPTER. VIII.