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Show BY PATH AND TRAIL. 17 they would wear down any four men of the Japhetic stock. Of sensitive nostril, sharp ear and keen eye, noth ing of any import passed unnoticed, and if it came to a brush with Mexican " hold- ups " or mountain bandits these Indian guards could be trusted to acquit themselves as brave men. Half of the fierce and one time numerous Yaquis were long ago converted to Christianity by Spanish priests and have conformed to the ways of civilized man. They work in the mines, cultivate patches of ground and are employed on the few rancherias and around the hacien das to be found in Sonora. Others are in the service of the government, holding positions as mail carriers and express runners. In places almost inaccessible to man, in eeries hidden high up in the mountains, in cul- de- sacs of the canyons, are mining camps having each its own little postoffice. The office may be only a cigar box nailed to a post, or soap box on a veranda, but once a week, or it may be only once a month, the office receives and delivers the mail. Night or day the Yaqui mail run ner may come, empty the box, drop in his letters, and, like a coyote, is off again for the next camp, perhaps thirty miles across the mountains. Clad only in bullhide sandals and breechclout, the Yaqui mail bearer can out run and distance across the rough mountain trails any horse or burro that was ever foaled. Don Alonzo tells me and I believe him that, before the government opened the road from Chihuahua to El Eosario, a dis tance of 500 Spanish miles ( 450 of ours) a Tarahumari Indian carried the mail regularly in six days, and after resting one day, returned to Chihuahua in the same time. The path led over mountains from 4,000 to 6,000 feet high, by the rim of deep precipices, across bridgeless |