The Republican., 1891-11-27

| lures were twisted in their places, of.
fered Maxwell, who had not as yet per.
mitted single sigh to escape his lips,
half tumblerful OF whisky, but be.
fore had fairly put it to his mouth he
fell over, having tainted dead away,
| while great beads Of perspiration stood
on his forehead Indicative Of the pain
he had suffered, as the amputation OF
the thumb, the surgeon told US then,
was as bad as that of a leg! Maxwell
was confined to his bed for several days
with high fever; during his intervals
| of freedom from pain, and while he was
convalescing, Carson and | conversed
with him, or took turns reading aloud
to the old mountaineer. He returned
to his ''ranche" as soon as the surgeon
pronounced him well, and Carson to his
home in Taos. saw the latter but once
more, at Maxwell's, but he was en- route
to visit me at Fort Harller, in Kansas,
when ne was taken i'll at Fort Lyon,
Colorado, in 1868, where he oied. Car
son was one OF natures noblemen;
qniet, polite and true; man whom you
would be proud to entertain.
passed delightful two weeks-it
| proved my last visit with Maxwell late
in the summer of 1867, at the time the
excitement over the discovery of gold
on his ''ranche" had just commenced,
and adventurous were beginning to con
s. giegate in the hills and gulches from
everywhere! The discovery of the pre-
cious metal on his estate was the primal
cause of his financial embarrassment,
| resulting in it's disposal. 1t was the
ruin also of many other prominent men
in New Mexico, who expended their en-
| tire fortune in the construction of an
immense ditch, forty miles in length
from the source Of the Little Cana
dian" or Red river-to supply the
placer diggings ir the Moreno valley
with water, when the melted snow of
''Old Badly" range had exhausted itself
in the late summer. The scheme was
stupendous failure; its ruins may be
seen to-day in the deserted valleys-a
monument to mans engineering skill,
but the wreck of his hopes!
For some years previous to the dis
covery of gold in the mountains and
gulches of "Maxwell's Ranche," it was
known that copper existed in the region;
several shafts had been sunk and tun-
ncls driven in various places, and gold
had been found from time to time, but
vas kept a secret for many months.
| It's presence was at last unfolded to
Maxwell by party of his own miners
who We're boring into the heart of "Old
Badly" for IA copper lead that had
cropped out, and WAS then lost.
OF course, to keep the knowledge OF
the discovery of gold from the world is
| an impOssibility; such was the case in
! this Instance, and soon commenced that
squatter-immigratio out of which,
after the rancho" was sold and Max
we'll died, grew that litigation which
has resulted IN favor of the company
who purchased from, or through first
owners after Maxwell's death.
MaXwell's most important cOpper-mine
was located near the top of ''Old Badly"
an immense mass of disrupted granite
and other primitive rock, rising thirteen
thousand feet above the level of the
sca-according to early measurements,
whether correct, do not linow-whose
summit, bare and cold, far above the
timber limit, has suggested its name.
have stood on that dcnuded, bleak
and rough, ancient landmark years ago
in the daylight and in the darkness;
the view from the storm-beaten crown
of this grand, time-w0rn sentinel of
the range is indescribably sublimc
Far away to the north, the snow-cappcd
pinnacles of the twin-Spanish peaks
glistcn and sparkle in the sun, and be-
yond them the majestic, natural monu-
mcnt to Gen. Pike hangs like great
white cloud high in the heavens. Be-
tween these grand efforts of nature,
when she was in an angry mood,
chiliads of ages ago, stretching indefi-
nitely into the purple mist to the south
and west, rugged spurs of dozen
separate chains throw their cOni2al
shadows over the landscape. On the
cast, the great plains of Colorado and
KanSas-oriCinati at the foot hills
-trecless, boundlcss, and apparent
ly as illimitable as the ocean, lose them
selves in the deep blue Of the horizon.
In the distant northwest, the Arkansas
the Nile of Amcrica-in the similitude
of u titanic silver serpent, silently COM
mences to twist it's way; its sand
beaches and dark eddics drinking up
the infltrated raindrops as the river
moves on its noiscless way to tile sea
more than two thousand miles by it's
torturus windingG
MaXwell's generosity was unbcundcd,
but erratic in its manifestion; he de-
serves monument for his charities, the
half of which will never be known; and
no one is more missed than he by the
people to whom he was an indulgent
father.
Maxwell was representative man Of
the border in it's purity of the same
class as his compeers, one of whom
have wild-civiliZc,, Eoen,"
to borrow an expressive term from John
Burroughs-of strong local attack
ments, and ovcrfowins with the ''milli
of human kindness" To such as he
there was an indescribable and uncon-
querable infatuation in life on the
remote plains and in the solitude of the
mountains. There was never anything
of the desperate in their character; this
latter class, which at times have made
the far west-since the advent of tho
Observation-Disclosures, were bad men orig
;DoIl, ba iJapn6 RI or.iu,a nv tho niti lncs