CHAPTER XII.
The Tarahumares Still Afraid of Me--Don Andres Madrid to the Rescue--Mexican Robbers Among the Tarahumares--Mode of Burial in Ancient Caves--Visit to Nonoava--The Indians Change their Minds about Me, and Regard Me as a Rain-god--What the Tarahumares Eat--A Pretty Church in the Wilderness--I Find at Last a Reliable Interpreter and Proceed to Live a l'Indienne.
As I travelled along I found the natives unobliging and afraid of me.

One man who had hid himself, but was after a while forced to reappear, bluntly asked, "Are you not the man who kills the fat girls and the children ?" At another time I was taken for Pedro Chaparro, the famous robber, who had notoriously deceived the Indians.

The guide took only a half-hearted interest in me, as he feared that by being seen with me he was ruining his trade with the natives, who were especially suspicious about my writing in my note-book, taking it as a proof of my design to take their land away from them.

Still, I accomplished a good deal and made interesting observations, though the difficulties under which I had to labour were quite exasperating.
It was a positive relief, when in the beginning of August, six weeks after my start from Guachochic, I arrived at Guajochic (guajo = _sancudo_, a small mosquito), one of the stations where the bullion trains stop on their travels between Batopilas and Carichic.

The man then in charge of this rather lonely looking place, Andres Madrid, turned out to be very interesting.