I never saw Major Scurry again, but learned that he raised a Confederate regiment and was killed at the head of his troops in a battle with Banks' Expedition on the upper Red River. On returning to El Paso, I wrote to my brother, W. W., whose school term had expired, that I had secured him a position as clerk in the sutler's store at Fort Fillmore. He held this position a year, and then joined me in El Paso. He had enough money to buy a lot, on which I built him a house, costing about a thousand dollars. W. W. and I then sent for our brother Emmett, and we three built a ranch eighteen miles above El Paso, called "Los Tres Hermanos." Emmett occupied this ranch, which was made into a Santa Fe mail station. Previously I lived on lot No. 116 in a tent, doing my own cooking. I built myself a nice adobe house, doing much of the work myself. Mexican peons made the bricks from a mixture of adobe soil and straw. They were two feet by one foot, four inches thick, and dried in the sun. These were very substantial, withstood the rain and made a house cool in the daytime and warm at night. The house was on the bank of a ditch supplying running water to the farm and under many cottonwood trees. In summer I often slept on the adobe earth roof. Strange to say, even in the hardest rains the water would seldom go through the roof, which was about eight inches thick. At the same time I built my house, I superintended building houses for many others. [Illustration: PLAT OF THE TOWN OF ELPASO. DIMENSIONS BLOCKS 160 FEET SQUARE. LOTS 86 FEET 8 INCHES BY 120 FEET. STREETS 70 FEET WIDE. ALLEYS 20. PROPRIETORS. J.S. GILLETT, H.S. GILLETT, J.F. CROSBY, W.J. MORTON, V. ST. VRAIN, W.T. SMITH, ANSON MILLS, FEB. 28, 1859. SURVEYOR. SCALE 200 FEET TO THE INCH PROPERTY SOLD AND IMPROVED BEFORE THE TOWN WAS LAID OFF INDICATED BY BROKEN LINES _J. McKITTRICK & CO. LITH. 36 M. MAIN ST._] I early learned the ways of the roaming Indians, and in my surveying expeditions took only a burro for my pack and two Mexicans for chain carriers. I wore a buckskin suit made by myself, and carried a single change of underclothing. We moved from tract to tract, camping without a tent under the mesquite trees, our provisions consisting only of coffee, hard bread and bacon, and occasionally some fresh meat we could kill. Although Indians undoubtedly saw us, they never attacked us during the three years in which I did surveying. The risk of being killed to secure only one animal and a small amount of provisions was not worth while.