n
birth but under Spanish auspices, was first to establish the missions on
the Gila River,--from 1689 to 1717 (the date of his death). He made at
least four appalling journeys on foot from Sonora to the Gila, and
descended that stream to its junction with the Colorado. It would be
extremely interesting, did space permit, to follow fully the wanderings
and achievements of that class of pioneers of America who have left such
a wonderful impress on the whole Southwest,--the Spanish missionaries.
Their zeal and their heroism were infinite. No desert was too frightful
for them, no danger too appalling. Alone, unarmed, they traversed the
most forbidding lands and braved the most deadly savages, and left in
the lives of the Indians such a proud monument as mailed explorers and
conquering armies never made.

* * * * *

The foregoing is a running summary of the early pioneering of
America,--the only pioneering for more than a century, and the greatest
pioneering for still another century. As for the great and wonderful
work at last done by our own blood, not only in conquering part of a
continent, but in making a mighty nation, the reader needs no help from
me to enable him to comprehend it,--it has already found its due place
in history. To record all the heroisms of the Spanish pioneers would
fill, not this book, but a library. I have deemed it best, in such an
enormous field, to draw the condensed outline, as has now been done; and
then to illustrate it by giving in detail a few specimens out of the
host of heroisms. I have already given a hint of how many conquests and
explorations and dangers there were; and now I wish to show by fair
"sample pages" what Spanish conquest and exploration and endurance
really were.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Pronounced Mish-ton.

[8] Often misspelled Kino.

II.

SPECIMEN PIONEERS.

I.

THE FIRST AMERICAN TRAVELLER.

The achievements of the explorer are among the most important, as they
are among the most fascinating, of human heroisms. The qualities of mind
and body necessary to his task are rare and admirable. He should have
many sides and be strong in each,--the rounded man that Nature meant man
to be. His body need not be as strong as Samson's, nor his mind as
Napoleon's, nor his heart the most fully developed heart on earth; but
mind, heart, and body he needs, and each in the measure of a strong man.
There is hardly another calling in whic