ney of the Dead Man! From what dim old
legend has the name come down? No one knows. The name has outlived the
story.

Perhaps some grim, hard-riding Spaniard made his last ride here; weary
at last of war, turned his dead face back to Spain and the pleasant
valleys of his childhood. We have a glimpse of him, small in the
mighty silence; his faithful few about him, with fearful backward
glances; a gray sea of waving grama breaking at their feet; the great
mountains looking down on them. Plymouth Rock is unnamed yet.--Then
the mist shuts down.

The Santa Fe Trail reaches across the Jornado; tradition tells of
vague, wild battles with Apache and Navajo; there are grave-cairns
on lone dim ridges, whereon each passer casts a stone. Young mothers
dreamed over the cradles of those who now sleep here, undreaming; here
is the end of all dreams.

Doniphan passed this way; Kit Carson rode here; the Texans journeyed
north along that old road in '62--to return no more.

These were but passers-by. The history of the Jornado, of indwellers
named and known, begins with six Americans, as follows: Sandoval, a
Mexican; Toussaint, a Frenchman; Fest, a German; Martin, a German;
Roullier, a Swiss; and Teagardner, a Welshman.

You might have thought the Jornado a vast and savage waste or a
pleasant place and a various. That depended upon you. Materials for
either opinion were plenty; lava flow, saccaton flats, rolling sand
hills sage-brush, mesquite and yucca, bunch grass and shallow lakes,
bench and hill, ridge and groundswell and wandering draw; always the
great mountains round about; the mountains and the warm sun over all.

A certain rich man desired to be President--to please his wife,
perhaps. He was a favorite son sure of his home-state vote in any
grand old national convention. He gave largely to charities and
campaign funds, and his left hand would have been justly astonished to
know what his right hand was about.

Those were bargain-counter days. Fumbling the wares, our candidate
saw, among other things, that New Mexico had six conventional votes:
He sent after them.

So the Bar Cross Cattle Company was founded; range, the Jornado. Our
candidate provided the money and a manager, also ambidextrous with
instructions to get those votes and incidentally to double the money,
as a good and faithful manager should.

He got the six votes, but our candidate never became president.
Poor fellow, his millions could not bring him happ