The next evening we came to a trading-post called Alamo, on the Pecos bank; and about eight o’clock, as we were seated upon a bench in the post, four cow-boys rode up, and dismounting, walked in to the bar, with the bells jingling upon their spurs and their six-shooters dangling at their sides. They set their broad hats back upon their heads, and one big fellow, with his shirt open and his breast naked, called us all up and we drank together. They were not satisfied until we had taken several rounds; and though the drinks were _two bits_ apiece, they were as free as though they were but three cents. Knowing that it would not do to refuse to drink with _cow-boys_, when they ask, we drank with them, but touched it lightly. We talked and laughed together as though we were old friends; and at length they said they were out on a horse-hunt. They said that a few days before, as they were camped upon Salt Lake, fifty miles to the west, some Kiawa Indians had dashed into their camp, and, killing the cook, ran off twelve good ponies. They _described_ them and told the _brand_, and we were sure that we had the horses. We told them of our capture, and they recognized the ponies at sight. We told them that we had left two thieves sleeping by a little fire in a ravine fifty miles below, and had killed one stubborn pony. They said what we had done was well done; but it must be finished. They said they had been bothered a great deal with these Kiawa and Comanche devils, who constantly hung upon their range, shooting down every lone cow-boy and running off every horse they could get, and they had made up their minds to give them some of their own medicine. The next morning they rode off, bright and early, swearing that if they could be found the _other two_ would be sleeping by the fire _that night_. They insisted upon our going along; but it was not our _mission_ to _kill Indians_, and we refused. We were satisfied that if the story had been rightly told, our work had been rightly done; and we moved on up the river. The country was very _rough_; but we kept along the river, and in a few days were in _Santa Fe_, the capital of New Mexico, and the terminus of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. The town is located among the hills, and stage-roads are worn deep in several directions. The old, abandoned Santa Fe trail, which we had crossed so many times in our hunts, wound like a serpent down the hill-side into the town. It had been _some time_ since we had seen _frame houses_, and they appeared to us as grand as Roman cathedrals; and for several days we enjoyed the novelty of civilization very much. There were large _stock-yards_ here, and many thousand head are annually shipped from this place. Stock-raising and mining are all that can be done among these hills and bluffs.