In autumn, Mr. Lasar arrived with his wife, two daughters, and a younger son, and brought with him about five hundred negroes, a number of fine horses and splendid cattle. Our social circumstances thus advanced a stage. This highly educated and amiable family offered me pleasures which appeared to me quite new and attractive, and I did not reflect that I had bidden farewell to them some few years back through sheer weariness. The deer-hide dress was now frequently changed for the costume of former days, the razors looked up, an old negress hired who knew how to wash and iron, and imperceptibly many long-forgotten follies and considerations crept into our simple, natural life. Civilization, however, had set its foot in our paradise once for all, and nothing was able to oppose its rapid advance. The winter brought several large planters to Mustang River, above Lasar's estate, and the land toward the northern rivers was occupied by others, while to the south of us the settlements of the Rio Grande also increased. All these new-comers were persons who occupied large districts, by which the disagreeable small neighbourhood was avoided. Still a few squatters had already settled here and there on the less valuable small lots between our estates, and among them were some most unsatisfactory persons. One Sunday morning I was riding several miles above the fort through the woods in the direction of the Leone. I had thrown the reins on Czar's neck and was no great distance from the river bank, when Trusty stopped and looked round to me with a growl. I called him back and rode slowly up the small elevation whence I could look down at the river. To my surprise, I saw there a pretty young woman, with a man's arm round her waist, sitting on the bank, where they had made coffee over a small fire, and were now comfortably drinking it. Not far from them a powerful horse was grazing, and close by stood a two-wheeled cart, which contained some household articles and provisions. The long single rifle lay by the man's side, and a couple of deer legs and a turkey were hanging on the tree behind him. "Hilloh, sir, you are on Indian territory!" I shouted to the stranger, and he hurriedly leaped up rifle in hand, but I rode up to him with a smile, and blamed his recklessness, remarking that if I had been an Indian he would no longer be among the living.