2 10 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



miles before turning," observes my chauffeur, as he 

 deftly swings the car around the arrowhead and 

 plunges south. "Now we're on the old Santa Fe 

 Trail." 



Wellnigh bottomless are the tracks made by the 

 wheels of those prairie schooners of the sturdy pio- 

 neers, but the going is fair, and for awhile our con- 

 versation lingers with those toiling wagons and the 

 thrills of a vanished past absorb us. We behold 

 war-painted Indians dashing out from the shelter of 

 arroyos and buttes, and feel to our inmost souls the 

 solitariness of immense unpeopled spaces. We 

 dream backward only to the early eighties when the 

 railroad down the Valley was completed. In 

 imagination, too, we share the relief and joy of the 

 old-timers on catching sight of U. S. Troopers hur- 

 rying to the rescue from Fort Selden in the Valley. 

 Travelers then by stage or wagon had scant time to 

 bestow on the glory and beauty of the high ranges ; 

 their business was to press on to the Fort, or to Old 

 Mesilla some nineteen miles further south. The 

 Old Santa Fe Trail was a warpath in bloody earnest, 

 whether it led across high range or desert, or pene- 

 trated timber clad walls of rocky canons in whose 

 depths strove together not only white man and In- 

 dian but Federal and Confederate, American and 

 Mexican. 



As we start to climb I hold my peace, for now are 

 we verily up against it, and Don't-speak-to-the- 

 chauffeur becomes the part of wisdom. This is 

 work, not play, for both driver and car. 



