I have been in frontier towns quite often…
source date: 1891
availability: public-domain

wn in the desert. The town was probably three hundred yards from the depot, and as soon as the cars stopped a crowd of probably one hundred of about the worst looking speci- mens of humanity to be found on earth, ran down to the railroad and we were absolutely surrounded. I have been in frontier towns quite often and I have seen crowds composed of frontiers- men but the crowd we struck at Deming that sunny April day was without exception the worst I ever saw. Fortunately we were all well armed and didn’t have on “white shirts”, neither did we make no great display of “store cloth” or I firmly believe they would have “held us up” in broad daylight. Our destination was the Burro mountains some sixty or seventy miles from Deming and we had our choice either to walk or purchase a conveyance and ride, but as walking was out of the question, we had decided to buy a wagon and team and camping outfit if it could be pro- cured in Deming. I think it quite probable we would have never left Deming alive but one of our party who had lived in New Mexico several years happened to espy an old acquain- tance in the crowd by the name of Apache George to whom he had extended some kind- ness at some previous time. As soon as Apache recognized an old friend in one of us he took us under his protec- tion and gave the crowd to understand in the