The record-union., 1891-05-10
THE RIVER OF LOST SOULS
a March that Gave Name to a New
Mexican Stream.

n March that Gave Name to a New
Mexican Stream.
Over three centuries backward and be-
fore the inquisitive De Soto had lighted his
camp fires on the banks of the Missis-
sippi, the Spaniards had achieved two
settlements in this land Of the Occident-
Santa Ee and st. Augustine. They had
no knowledge of the country which lay
between these points or its inhabitants
As to what might be the dangers and
deadtalls OF journey from one place to
another, they We're as blandly ignorant as
Of the history of the moon. But this
Ignorance affected them not, and full Of
the uneasy spirit Of the hour military
party III Santa Fe resolved on an over
land expedition to st. Augustine. They
knew the distance, for they could figure
the latitude and longitude, and they
could get the direction by the compass:
but this was the sum of their knowledge.
The expedition, numbering some hun
dreds of men, left Santa Fe late in the
summer, and crossing the mountains at
the Ration Pass, the present route of the
Santa Fe Railroad, they camped that Win
ter on the site of Trinidad. The grass
was long in the valley, the game was
plenty on the hills, their own stores were
ample, and, sending back to Santa Fe for
minstrel and glee maiden, these gentle
men of the sword, with wine, women and
=
have since. Those old dons were lads of
spirit and possessed high hearts as well
as q taste for travel. Before them to the
eastward, as far as the eye could sweep.
spread the desert unconfined. What was
to be met there they knew not, but their
lack OF knowledge was coincident with
an equal lack of care.
With the melting of the SHOWS in the
spring sunshine their women and camp
followers returned to Santa Fe. The last
hand was waved goOd-by, the last ddioS
was uttered, and the explorers turned
their resolute faces to the work in hand.
They marched down the valley of the lit
tie muddy river which flows as you read
this, through the town Of Trinidad. The
ones who were to return to Santa Fe
watched them for miles, assisted by the
CLINT of the sun on steel cap and harness.
At last they were hidden in willows far
down the valley, and this was the last
that was ever known of them. With the
last flap of the last banner it was as if
they had marched out of existence, and
whether they sunk in rivers, perished in
the drifting SHOWS, or were done to death
by Indians was never told. No sign or
trace of this expedition or it's people was
ever found.
There was something so eerie and mys-
terious in the complete disappearance of
this band, something so dark in the
silence of their fate. that the superstitious
Spaniard made the sign of the holy cross
when he recalled it. With that effort of
commemoration which was the spirit of
that time, the little muddy torrent in
in whose valley the lost explorers last
were seen was called El Rio de Los Ami
mas-"The River of Lost Souls" This
was the Spanish name when Sublette,
Chouteau, Brent, Carson, st. Vrain, and
other representatives of the French Fur
Company at st. Louis, first saw it.
Knowing nothing of the story, and asss-
ted only by their inferences drawn from
the name, these translated the appellation
into the Purgatoire. When the jocund
bull-whacker of the overland trail got to
it, in his free-and-easy French he called
it ''the Picketwire." Every brand it
ever had still sticks, and to-day you viii
find the little vagrant of stream pursu
ing its glistening mission to the sea with
as many names as member of the Brit
ish House of Lords.-KansaS CITY Star.