When I deserted from the sloop-o'-war Jamestown it was with the no uncertain knowledge that it was distinctly to my best advantage to clear out of the city of Mazatlan just as rapidly as I could, for the ships of the free and (presumably) enlightened Republic had not yet swerved altogether from the customs of the King's Navee, one of which said customs was to hang deserters at the yard-arm. Sometimes they shot them, but I do not remember that the gentlemen most concerned had any choice in the matter. At any rate, I know that it was with a distinct feeling of relief that I covered the last few yards that brought me out of the city of Mazatlan and into the open country. In theory, of course, the captain of the sloop-o'-war Jamestown could not have sent a squad of men after me with instructions to bring me back off foreign soil dead or alive, but in practice that is just what he would have done. Theory and practice have a habit of differing, especially in the actions of an irate skipper who sees one of his best ward-room stewards vanishing from his jurisdiction.Life now opened before me with such a vista of possibilities that I felt my breath taken away. Here was I, a youth twenty-two years old, husky and sound physically, free in a foreign country which I felt an instant liking for, and no longer beholden to the Stars and Stripes for which I was quite ready to fight but not to serve in durance vile on a plague-ship. My spirit bounded at the thought of the liberty that was mine, and I struck northward out of Mazatlan with a light step and a lighter heart. At the edge of the city I paused awhile on a bluff to gaze for the last time on the Bay, on the waters of which rode quietly at anchor the vessel I had a few hours before quit so unceremoniously. There was no regret in my heart as I stood there and looked. I had no particular love for Mexico, but then I had no particular love for the sea, either, and a good deal less for the ships that sailed the sea. So I turned my back very definitely on that part of my life and set my face toward the north, where, had I known it, I was to find my destiny beneath the cloudless turquoise skies of Arizona.

When I left Mazatlan it was with the intention of walking as far as I could before stopping, or until the weight of the small bundle containing my worldly possessions tired my shoulders. But it was not to be so. Only two miles out of the city I came upon a ranch owned by two Americans, the sight of whom was very welcome to me just then. I had no idea that I should find any American ranchers in the near neighborhood, and considered myself in luck. I found that one of the American's names was Colonel Elliot and I asked him for work. Elliot sized me up, invited me in to rest up, and on talking with him I found him to be an exceedingly congenial soul. He was an old Confederate colonel—was Elliot, but although we had served on opposite sides of the sad war of a few years back, the common bond of nationality that is always strongest beyond the confines of one's own land prevented us from feeling any aloofness toward each other on this account. To me Colonel Elliot was an American, and a mighty decent specimen of an American at that—a friend in need. And to Colonel Elliot also I was an American, and one needing assistance. We seldom spoke of our political differences, partly because our lives speedily became too full and intimate to admit of the petty exchange of divergent views, and partly because I had been a boy during the Civil War and my youthful brain had not been sufficiently mature to assimilate the manifold prejudices, likes, dislikes and opposing theories that were the heritage of nearly all those who lived during that bloody four years' war.

I have said that Colonel Elliot was a friend in need. There is an apt saying that a "friend in need is a friend indeed," and such was Colonel Elliot as I soon found. For I had not been a week at the ranch when I was struck down with smallpox, and throughout that dangerous sickness, lasting several weeks, the old Colonel, careless of contagion, nursed me like a woman, finally bringing me back to a point where I once again had full possession of all my youthful health and vigor.

I do not just now recall the length of time I worked for Elliot and his partner, but the stay, if not long, was most decidedly pleasant. I grew to speak Spanish fluently, haunted the town of Mazatlan (from which the Jamestown had long since departed), and made as good use generally of my temporary employment as was possible. I tried hard to master the patois of the peon as well as the flowery and eloquent language of the aristocracy, for I knew well that should I at any time seek employment as overseer at a rancho either in Mexico or Arizona, a knowledge of the former would be indispensable, while a knowledge of the latter was at all times useful in Mexico, especially in the cities, where the possession of the cultured dialect marked one for special favors and secured better attention at the stores.

The Mexicans I grew to understand and like more and more the longer I knew them. I found the average Mexican gentleman a model of politeness, a Beau Brummel in dress and an artist in the use of the flowery terms with which his splendid language abounds. The peons also I came to know and understand. I found them a simple-minded, uncomplaining class, willingly accepting the burdens which were laid on them by their masters, the rich landlords; and living, loving and playing very much as children. They were good-hearted—these Mexicans, and hospitable to the last degree. This, indeed, is a characteristic as truly of the Mexican of today as of the period of which I speak. They would, if needs be, share their last crust with you even if you were an utter stranger, and many the time some lowly peon host of mine would insist on my occupying his rude bed whilst he and his family slept on the roof! Such warm-hearted simplicity is very agreeable, and it was a vast change from the world of the Americans, especially of the West, where the watchword was: "Every man for himsel', and the de'il tak' the hindmost." It may be remarked here that the de'il often took the foremost, too!

When I left the hospitable shelter of Colonel Elliot's home I moved to Rosario, Sinaloa, where was situated the famous Tajo mine which has made the fortunes of the Bradbury family. It was owned then by Don Luis Bradbury, senior, the same Bradbury whose son is now such a prominent figure in the social and commercial life of San Francisco and Los Angeles. I asked for work at the Bradbury mine, obtained it, and started in shoveling refuse like any other common laborer at the munificent wage of ten dollars per week, which was a little less than ten dollars more than the Mexican peons laboring at the same work obtained. I had not been working there long, however, when some suggestions I made to the engineer obtained me recognition and promotion, and at the end of a year, when I quit, I was earning $150 per month, or nearly four times what my wage had been when I started.

And then—and then, I believe it was the spell of the Arizona plains that gripped the strings of my soul again and caused them to play a different tune.... Or was it the prospect of an exciting and more or less lawless life on the frontier that beckoned with enticing lure? I do not know. But I grew to think more and more of Arizona, the Territory in which I had reached my majority and had found my manhood; and more and more I discovered myself longing to be back shaking hands with my old friends and companions, and shaking, too, dice with Life itself. So one day saw me once more on my way to the wild and free Territory, although this time my road did not lie wholly across a burning and uninhabited desert.

It is a hard enough proposition now to get to the United States from Mazatlan, or any other point in Mexico, when the Sud Pacifico and other railroads are shattered in a dozen places and their schedules, those that have them, are dependent on the magnanimity of the various tribes of bandits that infest the routes; but at the time I write of it was harder.

To strike north overland was possible, though not to be advised, for brigands infested the cedar forests of Sinaloa and southern Sonora; and savage Yaquis, quite as much to be feared as the Apaches of further north, ravaged the desert and mountain country. I solved the difficulty finally by going to Mazatlan and shipping from that port as a deck-hand on a Dutch brigantine, which I remember because of its exceptionally vile quarters and the particularly dirty weather we ran up against on our passage up the Gulf. The Gulf of California, especially the mouth of it, has always had an evil reputation among mariners, and with justness, but I firmly believe the elements out-did themselves in ferocity on the trip I refer to.

Guaymas reached, my troubles were not over, for there was still the long Sonora desert to be crossed before the haven of Hermosillo could be reached. At last I made arrangements with a freighting outfit and went along with them. I had had a little money when I started, but both Mazatlan and Guaymas happened to be chiefly filled with cantinas and gambling-hells, and as I was not averse to frequenting either of these places of first resort to the lonely wanderer, my money-bag was considerably depleted when at last I arrived in the beautiful capital of Sonora. I was, in fact, if a few odd dollars are excepted, broke, and work was a prime necessity. Fortunately, jobs were at that time not very hard to find.

There was at that time in Hermosillo a house named the Casa Marian Para, kept by one who styled himself William Taft. The Casa Marian Para will probably be remembered in Hermosillo by old-timers now—in fact, I have my doubts that it is not still standing. It was the chief stopping-house in Sonora at that time. I obtained employment from Taft as a cook, but stayed with it only long enough to procure myself a "grub-stake," after which I "hit the grit" for Tucson, crossing the border on the Nogales trail a few days later. I arrived in Tucson in the latter part of the year 1870, and obtained work cooking for Charlie Brown and his family.

It was while I was employed as chef in the Brown household that I made—and lost, of course, a fortune. No, it wasn't a very big fortune, but it was a fortune certainly very curiously and originally made. I made it by selling ham sandwiches!

Charlie Brown owned a saloon not far from the Old Church Plaza. It was called Congress Hall, had been completed in 1868 and was one of the most popular places in town. Charlie was fast becoming a plutocrat. One night in the saloon I happened to hear a man come in and complain because there wasn't a restaurant in town that would serve him a light snack at that time of night except at outrageous prices.

"That's right," said another man near me, "if somebody would only have the sense to start a lunch-counter here the way they have them in the East he'd make all kinds of money."

The words suggested a scheme to me. The next day I saw Brown and got his permission to serve a light lunch of sandwiches and coffee in the saloon after I had finished my work at the house. Just at that time there was a big crowd in the town, the first cattle having arrived in charge of a hungry lot of Texan cowpunchers, and everyone was making money. I set up my little lunch counter, charged seventy-five cents, or "six-bits" in the language of the West, for a lunch consisting of a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and speedily had all the customers I could handle. For forty consecutive nights I made a clear profit of over fifty dollars each night. Those sandwiches were a mint. And they were worth what I charged for them, too, for bacon, ham, coffee and the other things were 'way up, the three mentioned being fifty or sixty cents a pound for a very indifferent quality.

Sometimes I had a long line waiting to buy lunches, and all the time I ran that lunch stand I never had one "kick" at the prices or the grub offered. Those cowboys were well supplied with money, and they were more than willing to spend it. Charlie Brown was making his fortune fast.

After I quit Brown's employ, John McGee—the same man who now is secretary of the Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society and a well-known resident of Tucson—hired myself and another man to do assessment work on the old Salero mine, which had been operated before the war. Our conveyance was an old ambulance owned by Lord & Williams, who, as I have said, kept the only store and the post office in Tucson. The outfit was driven by "Old Bill" Sniffen, who will doubtless be remembered by many Arizona pioneers. We picked up on the way "Old Man" Benedict, another familiar character, who kept the stage station and ranch at Sahuarita, where the Twin Buttes Railroad now has a station and branch to some mines, and where a smelter is located. We were paid ten dollars per day for our work and returned safely to Tucson.

I spoke of Lord & Williams' store just now. When in the city of Tucson recently I saw that Mr. Corbett has his tin shop where the old store and post office was once. I recognized only two other buildings as having existed in pioneer days, although there may be more. One was the old church of San Augustine and the other was part of the Orndorff Hotel, where Levin had his saloon. There were more saloons than anything else in Tucson in the old days, and the pueblo richly earned its reputation, spread broadcast all over the world, as being one of the "toughest" places on the American frontier.

Tucson was on the boom just then. Besides the first shipment of cattle, and the influx of cowboys from Texas previously mentioned, the Territorial capital had just been moved to Tucson from Prescott. It was afterwards moved back again to Prescott, and subsequently to the new town of Phoenix; but more of that later.

After successfully concluding the assessment work and returning to Tucson to be paid off by McGee I decided to move again, and this time chose Wickenburg, a little place between Phoenix and Prescott, and one of the pioneer towns of the Territory. West of Wickenburg on the Colorado River was another settlement named Ehrenberg, after a man who deserves a paragraph to himself.

Herman Ehrenberg was a civil engineer and scientist of exceptional talents who engaged in mining in the early days of Arizona following the occupation of the Territory by the Americans. He was of German birth and, coming at an early age to the United States, made his way to New Orleans, where he enlisted in the New Orleans Grays when war broke out between Mexico and Texas. After serving in the battles of Goliad and Fanning's Defeat he returned to Germany and wrote and lectured for some time on Texas and its resources. Soon after the publication of his book on Texas he returned to the United States and at St. Louis, in 1840, he joined a party crossing to Oregon. From that Territory he went to the Sandwich Islands and for some years wandered among the islands of the Polynesian Archipelago, returning to California in time to join General Fremont in the latter's attempt to free California from Mexican rule. After the Gadsden Purchase he moved to Arizona, where, after years of occupation in mining and other industries, he was killed by a Digger Indian at Dos Palmas in Southern California. The town of Ehrenberg was named after him.[1]

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