as it came to be called, was neither quick nor easy, the reason being that it was situated in the middle of Comancheria, the name given to lands of the Comanche Native Americans, a major plains people. It was the hunting grounds of a division called the Penateka Comanches, then understandably hostile to intrusion. There were but few surviving takers of the offer. In despair, the new state sold the land to Adelsverein, a quasi-altruistic private company whose product was the facilitation of settlement of North Europeans in Texas. The company was not told that the land was in Comancheria. The Federal Government, in the middle of a war with Mexico, anticipating that Texas had incurred a problem it could not solve, began to manage the problem. The surveying company of J.J. Giddings was brought in. John James Giddings (1821–1861), founder and owner, was one of a family of brothers from Pennsylvania who specialized in civil engineering in rough-and-ready circumstances on the frontier. One of them, Dewitt Clinton Giddings, later became a United States Representative from Texas. J.J. Giddings would conduct a survey of Comancheria, dividing it into farmable lots. The surveyors would be protected by the Texas Rangers. They would be highly paid for hazardous work. The survey was to begin in January, 1847, and be finished as quickly as possible. Brady would have graduated in June, 1846, if that theory of his Naval Academy years is accepted. Less than six months later he had resigned and had reported for work in San Antonio as a surveyor. His first assignment for the Navy is obscure, but it had not lasted long. Fresh from the east, he must have seemed pretty much of an eastern "dude." He had no training in working from a horse, roughing it in the wilderness, or fighting with a Colt .44 or Bowie knife, but he seems to have been popular with his companions. Once he misidentified a river. The team jestingly called it "Brady Creek." Texas Ranger, first enlistment After leaving the navy, Brady went to San Antonio, Texas where he joined the Texas Rangers. During the Mexican–American War he served in the Rangers with distinction as a lieutenant. At the end of the war he lived for a short time in Jalisco, Mexico before returning to Texas. In 1847, Brady served as a member of a surveying company working the Fisher–Miller Land Grant.