Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-03-10

low had made them comfortable as he
could he rolled them all up in blankets,
and, without pausing for food or rest him
self, rode back a distance of twenty miles
and brought party to the rescue. The
mother and children We're saved and the
men buried where they fell. The herder
never recovered his steers, but he found a
good, true wife in the woman he saved.
and it was from her own lips that the
writer learned the above story.
building the Railroad.
The onward march of the western pioneer
is not to be stopped by deserts. and in the
course OF events it became necessary for
the Santa Fe system TO build railroad
over the terrible Jornada. Wise men shook
their heads and prophesied that the thing
could not be done, and while they were
prophesying the engineers and contractors
set to work and did it. But the difficulties
encountered at many points in the desert
We're simply immense. The water required
for the railroad camps could only be obtain
ed from the Rio Grande river, or natural
springs at The foot of some mountain range,
ana was hauled on wagons distance CT
twenty-five or thirty miles. The rock en-
countered i'll the cuts was so hard that 1t
bid defiance 10 drills or giant powder. Now
and then by way of variety band of
ApacheS would Swocp down on the line and
scalp Il few graders stampede the stock
and 1t became necessary TO place NlncheS-
tiers in the hands of the men and chase the
Indians out of the country before work
could be resumed. The genuine grader or
mule driver is not an Indian fighter, and
occasionally the tables would be turned by
the Indians chasing the men out of the
country and thus work would be delayed
for weeks. But III the face of all these OBJ
StacleS the work finally completed and
the traveller seated in his parlor now
glides over the lava beds of the tornado,
reads his papers, tiirtS with the dark-eyed
senoritas at the stations and has no con-
hon oh a
and money expended to bring about the
luxury he laZily enjoys.
The line of road has been completed some
years and the old Mexican towns and adobe
hutS are vanishing with the cowboy and
the coyote; but when the road was con-
strGcted the country was practically I'M
known. From Santa Fe south the only
modern metnCd OF lOcumotion was the stage
coach, drawn by a dozen untamed bronchos
and generally handled by drunken driver
who never failed to assure his passengers
that he would get there on time provided
the road agents did not hold him up or
the ApacheS stampede his stock. On one
occasion Hon. Il. Gratz Brown, who ran on
the presidential ticket with Greeley, was
making the trip from Martins Well to
Point of Rocks, and at one of the stations
a new driver was taken aboard who CHANGED
to be little drunken, if such a thing was
| possible, than his predecessor. GratZ eX-
postulated, but the driver sung out "All
aboard, old man; this coach runs on time
and only touches ground in the high
places" Relating the incident afterward
Gratz declared that he could verify the
drivers statement as to the high places"
but he was not particularly anxious to re-
peat the experiment, and that If he had the
thing to do over again he would walk.
The grading camps brought together a
miscellaneous collection of the human race
impossible to describe, but among the most
| impossible of all was old Jim Best. He was
about fifty years of age with the neck and
lungs of Il buffalo. the head of a battering
ram, long muscular arms to which were
attached sleige- hammer fists, and a general
physique calculated to warn any one who
had offended him to resort to diplomacy
rather than fisticuffs. When Jim was sober
and in the possession of his senses he was
kind and gentle and would bear the rough
horseplay of the camp without murmur
but when payday came around and he had
imbibed a gallon or so of the Taos lightning
peculiar to that section of the country he
was. in the language of the boys, "a holy
terror AT last Jim became such a nui-
sance that it was found advisable to get
rid of him, and one evening n committee
waited on Jim and in firm but expressive
language gave him to understand that his
health required a protraCUed journey to
some other quarter of the globe. and that
he must never return. Jim Disappeared
and about n week after his lifeless body
was found floating In the Rio Grande. He
was buried on the railroad grade and to
this day a rude headstone can be seen on
which Is inscribed. Here lies Jim Best.
DIED Nov. ., 1850, q victim of hard luck"