Contracts were made for mules at from eight to eleven dollars each.

The smugglers furnished the animals, and took their pay in goods of the description before mentioned.

I doubt whether the Mexicans received in value from the traders five dollars per head for the animals they furnished, and still more, whether they paid anything but their own time in procuring them.

Such is trade; such is war.

The government paid in hard cash to the contractor the stipulated price.
Between the Rio Grande and the Nueces there was at that time a large band of wild horses feeding; as numerous, probably, as the band of buffalo roaming further north was before its rapid extermination commenced.