Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/170

164 band is heard of, they start for them, hunt them down, and shoot them all like dogs, making no prisoners. In this way he has restored peace to the neighborhood,



and is building up a town around him, already. He and his band have killed about eighty robbers within two years.

From this point the country grows still more broken, being cut up with deep arroyos, cañons and barrancas. The mountains in the distance are nearly all bare of timber, save a few mesquite trees, and the country has the general appearance of Western Texas along the southern edge of the great Llano Estacado. We were now ascending all the time, and had reached an altitude of about six thousand feet above the sea. We had left, the orange, palm, banana, and other fruits, and all the flowers of the tropics behind us, and were upon the Great Central Plateau of Mexico. The