One year during the dry season, after the harvest of corn was in, José accompanied several other young men of the tribe to a nearby mining town where labor was in demand, and here he experienced his first contact with “high” civilization. Here with pick and shovel he could earn half a peso a day—twenty-five cents. Even at that rate José could save enough to return to the little village in comparative affluence after a few months, for money of any kind was seldom seen there, practically all business being done by barter and one was indeed deeply in debt who owed his neighbor a peso! José’s native boss was easy-going and the men were not overworked, but the American foreman was a puzzle to José. Always on the go, he never sat down to rest. And such queer Spanish as he spoke—principally profanity! Then there were such wonderful and incomprehensible machines, there, which did the work of many men, run by steam and electricity: telephones, telegraphs, automobiles and countless other appliances.