proved to be his most apt and willing pupil. He taught me how the
natives, by nature simple-minded and unsophisticated, had lost all
confidence in their fellow-men in general and merchants in particular
through the, to say the least, very dubious and suspicious dealings
of the tribes of Israel. My uncle said he was an old timer in New
Mexico, but the Jew was there already when he came and, added he,
thoughtfully, "I believe the Jews came to America with Columbus."
With a pack of merchandise strapped to his back, this king of
commerce crossed the plains in the face of murderous Indians and with
the unexplainable, crafty cunning of his race, he sold tobacco and
trinkets to the warriors who had set out to kill him, and to the
squaws he sold Parisian lingerie at a bargain. He swore that he was
losing money and selling the goods below cost, not counting the
freight.

As the Indians had no money and nothing else of commercial value to
him, he bartered for the trophies of victory which the proud chiefs
carried suspended from their belts. Deprecatingly he called their
attention to the undeniable fact that these articles had been worn
before and had to be rated as second-hand goods. But he hoped that
his brother-in-law, Isaac Dreibein, who conducted a second-hand
hairdressing establishment in New York City, would take these goods
off his hands. This trade flourished for a time, until, as usual,
Israel fell off from the Lord, by opening shop on the Sabbath. An
unlucky Moses got into a fatal altercation with a Comanche chief,
whom he cheated out of a scalplock, as he was as baldheaded as a
hen's egg. Thereat the Indians became suspicious and refused to trade
with the Jews ever after.

With proverbial German thoroughness, uncle instructed me in all the