The Crossing of Narratives

My paternal grandfather crossed the Rio Grande with another young man he had met while working in some town in northern Mexico. He was only thirteen or so. He was working in a kitchen and sleeping in a shed behind the restaurant when the young man convinced my grandfather to make the journey across the river because the restaurant owner was taking advantage of them by paying them  very low wages for strenuous work. So the young man and the young boy went north. The young boy successfully swam across the Rio Grande, but the young man was swept away in the current and drowned.