[Illustration: MEXICAN INTERIOR.]

Pueblo, while not a representative Western town in these respects, yet
in its early days presented some curious combinations, most of them
growing out of the heterogeneous human mixture that attempted to form a
settlement. The famous Green-Russell party, on its way from Georgia to
the Pike's Peak country, had passed through Missouri and Kansas in 1858,
and there found an element ripe for any daring and adventurous deeds in
unknown lands. Many of the border desperadoes, then engaged in that
hard-fought prelude to the civil war, found it desirable and expedient
to leave a place where their violent deeds became too well known; and
these, together with others who hoped to find in a new country relief
from the anarchy which reigned at home, fell into the wake of the
pioneers. Pueblo received its full share of Kansas outlaws about this
time, and, what with those it already contained, even a modicum of peace
seemed out of the question. Here, for instance, was found living with
the Mexicans by the plaza a quarrelsome fellow named Juan Trujillo,
better known by the sobriquet of Juan Chiquito or "Little John," which
his diminutive stature had earned for him. This worthy is represented as
a constant disturber of the peace, and he met the tragic fate which his
reckless life had invited. From being a trusted friend he had incurred
the enmitv of a noted character named Charley Antobees, than whom,
perhaps, no one has had a more varied frontier experience. Coming to the
Rocky Mountains in 1836 in the employ of the American Fur Company, he
has since served as hunter, trapper, Indian-fighter, guide to several
United States exploring expeditions, and spy in the Mexican war as well
as in the war of the rebellion. Antobees still lives on the outskirts of
Pueblo, and his scarred and bronzed face, framed by flowing locks of
jet-black hair, is familiar to all. The frame that has endured so much
is now bent, and health is at last broken, and about a year since an