Old Hicks the Guide

After serving with the Texas Rangers in his late teens and early 20s, then studying for a career in medicine (in Kentucky), and then for the ministry (at Princeton), Charles Webber finally settled into journalism, writing for several literary reviews. Enticed by tales of gold and quicksilver in the country north of the Gila River in Arizona, Webber organized an expedition to the region, writing this and other books to promote it. In this volume, he vividly describes his adventures along the border, including encounters with scorpions, attacks of cholera, and the disastrous loss of the expedition’s horses to the Comanches. (Ever active, Webber next attempted to found a company providing camels for transportation in the Southwest, but he headed off to Nicaragua before anything came of it, and died there at the age of 37.)