People all along the route were mad because the stage company charged
$200 for a passage from Kansas City to Santa Fe and knowing that we were
compelled to haul the government mail, heavy or light, in the way or out
of it, and desiring to "put us to it," kept ordering these books sent
them. They never took one of them from the postoffice, hence the
accumulation in the postoffice grew until there was room for little
else. These books were surveys and agricultural reports. Unreadable to
say the least, but heavy in the extreme. The postoffice at Santa Fe was
a little bit of a concern, and the postmaster said there was no room for
the books there. Earlier in the year I had carried one of these sacks to
the postoffice and had attempted to get the postmaster to accept them as
mail. I told him that it was mail and that I had no other place to
deposit it. Nevertheless he said he would not have them left at the
postoffice and told me do anything I wanted to with them, saying at the
time that people all around there had a mania for ordering those books,
but never intended to take them when they ordered them. I took the books
around to the stage station and discovered four wagonloads of the
"government stuff."

At the time I placed the books in Red river I knew that the postmaster
would not let them be left there and I knew they might serve the
government better in a "bridge" than otherwise. Knowing this I felt that
I had a remedy at law and grounds for defense.

The four passengers with me "jawed" me quite enough to "extract" the
patience of an ancient Job for having treated government property to a
watery burial in Red river. Two of the passengers were Mexicans and two
other men from New York. However, the two Mexicans soon disgusted the
other two passengers, who took sides with me. The Mexicans said they