At a trading post I met an old Navajo, who directed some remark to the ladies of our party which the trader interpreted as "pretty women." For us, he asked the weather beaten man if he could tell where we were from, and he made a comprehensive gesture to the north and said the one word "Cheyenne." As an indication of how he knew, he touched a fur worn by one of the party, which was of beaver trapped at the base of Laramie peak, which was once the land of the Cheyennes.

My investigations later led me to old Santa Fe, and I stood at the corner of the Plaza, which was once the end of the Santa Fe trail. I stood with uncovered head in the shadow of the mission -- centuries old -- that was near this spot. About a half a block from the Plaza, which, had it articulation, could tell such wonderful stories, through one of the many doors in the white Wall that faces the street, is the home of Ex-Governor L. Bradford Prince, the historian of New Mexico. And facing the Plaza itself, is an ancient adobe building, the home of the state historical society. In this I loitered by day pouring over old scraps of history, and at night I would leave the hotel to stand in the Plaza, listening to the whispering winds and voices out of the past.

It was at Santa Fe that I learned of Dacombo, who, so far as I can learn, was the first white man to visit America's valley of the Nile. With an introductory note from Don Juan Jaquez I met Don Sol Luna, then republican national committeeman, but who is now passed, and asked him if he knew any stories of the first Spanish invasion of the north.