What Walker saw and heard at Guaymas satisfied him that a comparatively small body of Americans might gain a position on the Sonora frontier, and protect the families on the border from the Indians; and such an act would be one of humanity, no less than of justice, whether sanctioned or not by the Mexican Government. The condition of the upper part of Sonora was at that time, and still is, a disgrace to the civilization of the continent; and until a clause in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was rescinded by one in the Gadsden treaty, the people of the United States were more immediately responsible before the world for the Apache outrages. On none more immediately than on the American people, did the duty devolve of relieving the frontier from the cruelties of savage war. Northern Sonora was, in fact, more under the dominion of the Apaches than under the laws of Mexico; and the contributions of the Indians were collected with greater regularity and certainty than the dues to the tax-gatherer. The state of this region furnished the best defence for any American aiming to settle there without the formal consent of Mexico; and although political changes would certainly have followed the establishment of a colony near Arispe, they might be justified by the plea that any social organization, no matter how secured, is preferable to that in which individuals and families are altogether at the mercy of savages. But the men who sailed for Sonora were obliged to sojourn, for a time, on the peninsula; and their conduct in Lower California may be taken as the measure of their motives in the enterprise they undertook. Wheresoever they went they sought to establish justice and maintain order, and those among them who violated law were summarily punished. An instance occurred at the old mission of San Vincente, illustrative of the character of the expedition, and of the persons who directed it. Several of the soldiers had formed a conspiracy to desert and to pillage the cattle-farms on their way to Upper California. The plan and purposes of the conspirators were revealed by one of the confederates, and the parties to the plot were tried by court-martial, found guilty of the charge, and sentenced to be shot. A military execution is a good test of military discipline; for no duty is so repulsive to the soldier as that of taking life from the comrade who has shared the perils and privations of his arduous service. On this occasion, too, the duty was more difficult, because the number of Americans was small, and was daily diminishing. But painful as was the duty, the men charged with the execution did not shrink from the performance of it; and the very field where the unfortunate victims of the law expiated their offence with their lives, was suggestive of comparison between the manner in which the expeditionists and the Mexican Government severally performed the duties of protection to society. The