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His name was O'Malley. He had come from Monclova, whence the Rebels had banished him under threat of death. He had seen his church despoiled of its valuables, his school closed; he himself had managed to escape only by a miracle. During his flight toward the border he had suffered every indignity, and finally Longorio had intercepted him and brought him here, practically in chains.

I then pursued my journey to Monclova, the seat of government for the State of Coahuila and Texas, in company with several Mexican gentlemen and foreigners. Previous to this time, I had traveled several hundred miles entirely alone, and generally encamped in the woods or plains at night. On my arrival at Monclova, I was doomed to encounter "misfortune" of a very different character.

This column slowly worked its way to Monclova and then to Ciudad Porfirio Diaz, which it occupied on October 7th; the Constitutionalists ripped up the railroad and destroyed everything that might be useful to the Federals and a good deal that could not, and offered very little resistance.

The latter-named territory was inhabited almost entirely by Mexicans who had nothing in common with the Americans, and these Mexicans kept the capital city of the state at Monclova or Saltillo, so that the settlers in Texas had to journey five hundred miles or more by wagon roads for every legal purpose.

We heard of it; in fact, it was the talk of the town, and no one expected you would ever get back. And by the way, it was a contraband conducta owned by friends of ours who attacked you back of the town! Droll, is it not?" "Perhaps now," I doubtfully answered. "Yes," Mrs. Munzenberger continued, "they were on their way to Monclova. "But why did they attack us?" I queried.

The "sign" showed they had been south toward Monclova on a successful horse-stealing raid, for it was plain they had passed us in the night with a bunch of at least twenty horses, heading toward a point of the range only five or six miles west of where we should be compelled to enter it. We were in about as bad a hole as could be conceived. Plainly the Indians knew of our presence in the vicinity.

A stop of a few hours was made at the quaint little adobe-built town cabins formed of sun-dried bricks known by the name of Castaño, situated on the trunk line of the Mexican Central road, near the city of Monclova, which is a considerable mining centre. This small native village is the first typical object of the sort which greets the traveler who enters the country from the north.

Leaving the Alamo, we made a great circle through the desert, swinging first north toward the Sierra Mojada, then south, and ultimately eastward toward Monclova. The trip proved to be one of great hardship and danger, but only from scarcity of water; for while at isolated springs we found recent camps of one sort of desert prowler or another, we neither met nor saw any.

One day we marched on the road from Monclova to Parras thirty-five miles without water, a pretty severe day's marching for infantry. "Grass is very scarce, and indeed there is none at all in many regions for miles square. Its place is supplied with prickly-pear and thorny bushes.