Beside the yellow waters of the Rio Grande and near the Sierra Blanco range, lies El Paso. Its streets were busy with traffic, and tall buildings rose majestically on either side. But the wind sweeps through the mountain pass and the dust storms darken the sky for days at a time. Like all other desert regions the chief boast of its inhabitants is climate and “this exceptionally bad weather only known heretofore to the oldest settler” grows irksome when one has heard it five hundred times in like regions. Around and about El Paso for three hundred miles north, south, east, and west, is desert, and to those who have never seen a desert country it is surprising how all conditions of life are changed. These conditions are harder than in humid countries. In our northern land between Canada and the Gulf, that which sustains life grows in abundance and few people there are who know what it is to be hungry. But here in El Paso there are many of the poorer classes who actually suffer for something to eat. Within thirty minutes the entire scene had changed. I had crossed the river and was in El Paso del Norte, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. Narrow lane-like streets, white adobe buildings with heavily grated windows make the stranger feel that he has intruded on a convention of county jails. In half an hour I had gone backward three centuries. Silent, dark-browed figures walked the streets with Spanish cloak or serape wound majestically around them, donkeys laden with wood, peddlers with hogskins filled with pulque, strangely attired Mexicans, all formed a weird street scene not soon to be forgotten. [Illustration: We Saw Smoke Signals (page 187).] It was on the plaza here that General Bonito Juarez camped his little force of 150 men while he went to Washington to appeal to this government to enforce the Monroe doctrine in the midst of our own rebellion. When the American ultimatum went forth to France, Napoleon III withdrew his French troops. Then Juarez marched on to the City of Mexico gathering strength as he went. The unfortunate Maximilian fell into his hands and was executed on the “Cerra de las Campus” (The Hill of the Bells), near Queretaro on the 19th of June, 1867. General Bonito Juarez was a full blooded Aztec whom Fate seems to have ordained to bring about the political regeneration of his country. It was a gala day in El Paso del Norte. A company of Rurales from the interior was to contest in a shooting match with the Carbine Rifles and bets were running high. Both sides did some good shooting at 500 yards and the Carbine Rifles won. Bets were paid freely and everybody was in a good humor. I had formed the acquaintance of Captain Esperanza Provincio and at his invitation I fired a few shots, hitting the bull’s eye each time with one of the Mexican carbines.