Now we are almost up to the present. He was with the police about three years, mostly up at Turkey Creek and Whiteriver. Then he moved again. Off on his own now as a mustanger. (I guess to break horses you don’t have to be halter-broke yourself, because he was pretty good at it Mr. Mendez said.)

A month ago, then, when Mr. James Russell died, the word was passed to John Russell through Mr. Mendez that he had been left Russell’s place outside Contention. Mr. Mendez wanted to put him on a coach and send him down there in style, but Russell kept backing off. Finally, when he did show up willing, there were no more stagecoaches. As I have explained.

Hatch & Hodges was leaving Sweetmary partly because there wasn’t enough business from here south; partly because the railroad was taking too much business other places. But that day, all of a sudden, you’d never know we were hard up for business.

First the McLaren girl had come. Then John Russell. Then, right after he and Mr. Mendez left, a mustered-out soldier from Thomas came in looking for passage to Bisbee. He was going to get married in a week and anxious to get there. I told him how it was and he left, walking over to the hotel.

It wasn’t long after that Dr. Favor came.

I had never seen him before, but I had heard of him. So when he came in and introduced himself, I knew this was Dr. Alexander Favor, the Indian Agent at San Carlos.

His name was heard because San Carlos was so close, but not too much. You heard of Indian Agents if they were very good, like John Clum, or if they were bad and got caught dealing poorly with the Indians for their own personal gain. You heard when they weren’t at the reservation anymore and you heard of the new man arriving. So I didn’t know much about Dr. Favor. Only that he had been up at San Carlos about two years and had a wife that was supposed to be very pretty and about fifteen years younger than he was.