During the period of Wupa's exile, one knowing the Hopi would be curious to find out how he bore himself and whether an inherited love for the freedom of the desert was ever shown. Perhaps the early age at which he began kicking about the world, and his varied experiences, completely lost him to the feeling of his kith and kin. Civilization is irksome to the desert-bred Hopi and he soon becomes as homesick for his wind-swept mesas as the Eskimo for his land of ice or the Bedouin for the Sahara. These questions may have a suggested answer in the home-coming of Wupa, for he returned again to his native pueblo after one of the most varied and remarkable series of adventures that ever filled out a true story. The events that led up to the home-coming of Wupa form not the least interesting episodes in his history and occurred along the old Santa Fé Trail, immortalized by Josiah Gregg. The railroad builders had labored across the plains, up the steep slopes of the Rockies, following the famous trail to old Santa Fé, leaving behind two bands of steel. Blasting, cutting, filling, and bridging, they were advancing toward quiet Albuquerque on the lazy Rio Grande, and the news of these activities stirred that ancient town from center to circumference. The dwellers in the Southwest are brought squarely up against the "proposition," as they call it, that one must work if he would live. The Mexicans, though reputed lazy, are on the contrary always anxious to work for wages, and the motley and wicked railroad camp had a large population of the dark-skinned believers in Montezuma recruited from long distances. Wupa joined with the Albuquerque contingent. What his duties were it is not difficult to imagine; his skill in "rustling" wood and water in later years gives a good clue as to his work on the railroad. As messenger and general utility boy where steady labor was not required, he no doubt proved useful and picked up sundry pieces of silver for his señora. Perhaps not the least of his services lay in his unfailing good-humor expressed in cheering songs with which he softened the trials of railroad pioneering through that almost desert country.