A Sportsman 387 



and his assistant to Santa F^, the capital of the Terri- 

 tory, which I made headquarters for some time, 

 and frequently visited it during my trips to New 

 Mexico, at one time staying there while Gen. Lew 

 Wallace was governor of the Territory. I formed 

 a very pleasant friendship with him, and we planned 

 several excursions to take together in distant and 

 vmexplored points of the Territory for adventure 

 and new discovery, to be accompanied by a detach- 

 ment of soldiers, but which were never realized. 

 At that time he was engaged in writing his cele- 

 brated work Ben Hur and he would often read 

 over to me portions he had written, which I much 

 admired, little anticipating, however, the great at- 

 tention this book would receive when published, 

 as it has been more extensively circulated and read 

 than any other of late days. We often dined and 

 had pleasant smokes together. 



The Santa F6 railroad, which was hurriedly built 

 through the Territory and from Deming to Arizona, 

 met with more than the usual mishaps of newly 

 built roads, and I waited one time for two weeks in 

 Santa F6, during the rainy season, for the road to 

 be put in order from the washouts which occurred 

 on the line north going to Colorado, and after leaving 

 Santa F^ was a week in getting on to Colorado Springs, 

 over a distance covered in usual time in a day. And 

 one time, near Las Vegas, when we had halted the 

 train, after going over a shaky place, the track and 

 road-bed washed away behind us. The engine, cutting 

 away from us, went on to investigate the conditions 

 ahead, could not return, as the track broke away 

 between us, and our train was thus left isolated 



