"Have you shown them all how you can pack?" he asked dryly.
"Yes."
"Then we're where we were before, I guess—ready to start again, eh?"
"Ugh!" And Joe silently mounted, and amidst a shower of "good-byes," we drove off.
They were types, these two. Though nothing delighted them more than systematically to contradict and pooh-pooh one another, to less intimate acquaintances they were the essence of kindness and chivalrous courtesy; and let any one coincide with them when they spoke slightingly of one another, and he would soon find that he had unconsciously undertaken to whip a dogged-looking giant, over six feet high in his socks, and, without being in the least degree stout, apparently about four feet broad across the shoulders.
The Corralitos ranch lay between seventy and eighty miles over the border, in Chihuahua, in Mexico, and was a hundred and ten miles from Deming. The first day's drive to Smith's Wells was only eighteen miles. Thence to Ascension was an easy two days' drive, over a somewhat heavy road. On the fourth day Corralitos was reached early in the afternoon. Between Smith's Wells and Ascension, it was necessary to camp out on the Boca Grande River.
The gradual settling up of waste lands in the United States had already begun to turn attention towards Northern Mexico, when railway promoters recognised a fresh field in it for their enterprise. But until the lines they projected to connect it with the railway systems of the States were completed, properties purchased there were comparatively worthless. Now the aspect of things is changed; land is rising rapidly in value; and the probability that the magnificent provinces which compose the upper tier of the Mexican provinces will eventually become incorporated with the United States gathers strength each day. American politicians still scout this notion. But it must be remembered that such men are for the most part politicians by profession—theorists unaffected by the interests, and ignorant of the influences that sway the masses, not business men engaged in every walk of life and practically cognisant, therefore, of the questions submitted to them.
To judge fairly on such a subject as the one now broached, look at the map, contrast the characters, condition, strength, and relative rates of advance of the two peoples concerned; above all, gather the views of the American cattle-men, miners, traders, and railway stock-holders, of the large landowners (foreign, American, and Mexican) interested in the consummation of the union referred to, for these are the people who intend to bring it about.
It is idle to talk of justice and the obligations of honour in days when the hereditary right of a people to valuable land is hardly recognised, certainly not respected, unless they make good that right by cultivation. On all sides we see the traditions of law in this respect disregarded. Land would appear to belong in reality to those who most want it—to those who can render the best account of it. The tenure of the sluggard is on sufferance only. Even the strong, conservative, but unprofitable oak yields place to the seeded corn-stalk. And where Yankee enterprise and British tenacity have penetrated, and are busy, the rule of Mexican sloth is doomed. The Eastern politician may say that the annexation referred to is impossible, that the United States has land enough, and does not require any part of Mexico. But a nation is as little able to control its growth as a child. How much of what was once Mexican soil lies now within the borders of the United States? What were once California, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas? How many are the sacred contracts that the Washington Government has entered into, to respect the reservations of the Indians? Yet one by one these reservations have been redeemed by the plough, or overrun by the horned hosts of the cattle king. And now, in travelling through the States, one frequently hears indignant protests uttered against the Government for "giving" (!) the Indians the little land which still remains in their possession.