Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/504

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OLD MEXICO AND HER LOST PROVINCES.
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DISTANT VIEW OF TOMBSTONE.

poor, like a large firm lately suspended in Pima County. But as to shooting a driver, even in mistake for somebody else, he had no words to express his sense of its meanness.

He threw stones at his horses, as in Mexico, that is, at the leaders, beyond the reach of his long lash. The same stone was made to "carom" from one to the other, such was his skill, and startle them both. Long string-teams of mules or Texas steers, sixteen to a team, with ore-wagons, were met with along the road. Mexican-looking drivers trudged beside them in the deep, yellow dust, cracking their animals lustily with huge "black-snakes." Mesquit-bushes, and long grass dried to hay—not as good as it looked—covered portions of the surface; the rest was bare and stony.

We rode for a certain distance beside the branch rail-