What, sir, the hills are steep, the sand heavy, the mire is Despond-deep; for that reason will you choose a balky horse? Or will you follow a leader who plans surrender? The bookshelviki have thrown away the sword before the fight. They shriek a shameful message: "All is lost! Save yourselves who can!" The battle is sore upon us; true. But there is another war cry than this. It was born of a bitter hour; it was nobly boasted, and brave men made it good. Now, and for all time to come, as the lost and furious fight reels by, men will turn and turn again for the watchword of Verdun: "They shall not pass! They shall not pass!" Pardon the pontifical character of these remarks. They come tardy off. For years I have kept a safe and shameful silence when I should have been shouting, "Janet! Donkeys!" and throwing things. I will be highbrow-beaten no longer. I hereby resign from the choir inaudible. Modesty may go hang and prudence be jiggered; I wear Little Miss Brag's colors for favor; I have cut me an ellum gad, and I mean to use it on the seat of the scorner. * * * * * "Everything in Nature is engaged in writing its own history." So says Emerson or somebody. Here is the roll call of that lonesome bit between the Rio Grande and Caballo Mountain. Salem, Garfield, Donahue's, Derry and Shandon; those were the hamlets of the east side. Sound Irish, don't they? They were just what they sound like, at first. A few Irish families, big families, half of them girls--Irish girls; young gentlemen with a fancy to settle down settled right there or thereabouts. That's a quick way to start settlements. There was also a sardonic Greenhorn, to keep alive a memory of the old-time Texans, before the fences. A hundred years older than Greenhorn was the old Mexican outpost, San Ysidro; ruthlessly changed to Garfield when the Mississippi Valley moved in. Transportation was the poorest ever; this was the last-won farm land of New Mexico. Along with snakes, centipedes, little yellow bobcats, whisky, poker, maybe a beef or two--there were other features worthy of note. Each man had to be cook, housekeeper, hunter, laundryman, shoemaker, blacksmith, bookkeeper, purchasing agent, miner, mason, nurse, doctor, gravedigger, interpreter, surveyor, tailor, jailor, judge, jury and sheriff. Having no sea handy, he was seldom a sailorman. A man who could do these things well enough to make them work might be illiterate, but he couldn't be ignorant, not on a bet. It wasn't possible. He knew too much. He had to do his own thinking. There was no one else to do it for him. And he could not be wretched. He was too busy. "We may be poor sinners, but we're not miserable"--that was a favorite saying. When they brought in supplies or when they packed for a long trip, they learned foresight and imagination. A right good college, the frontier; there are many who are proud of that degree.