This communication would seem to a certain extent to discount the claims on reputation of William Becknell, generally known as the “father of the Santa Fé trail.” It ascribes the credit for the original selection of the Arkansas River route to Pike, with what justice we may ourselves determine as well as any. Our venturesome Southerners, of the Baird, McKnight and Chambers party, had lain in jail for nine years before John McKnight, the brother of Robert McKnight, in the year 1821, undertook the long journey to Chihuahua, which seems to have resulted in the setting free of all these Americans. Coming back to the United States over the Arkansas River trail, Baird and the two McKnights met the Ohio man, Hugh Glenn, and his associate or friend, Jacob Fowler, who were already at Taos, regardless of the ill-fortune of their predecessors in the hazardous game of prairie commerce. Becknell himself did not start out until 1821, and he did not intend to trade in Santa Fé, but only went thence after he had met some Mexicans on the headwaters of the Arkansas, who persuaded him to take his goods to Santa Fé instead of trading them among the Indians. Hugh Glenn and Becknell were thus both at Santa Fé during the winter of 1821-22. That following summer Braxton Cooper and his sons, as well as Becknell, made trips to Santa Fé, and it seems to have been on this second trip that Becknell attained the distinction commonly accorded him. He took three wagons through to Santa Fé, and instead of hugging the Arkansas clear out to the mountains, he struck off southwest toward San Miguel, by way of the Cimarron desert, the risky but shorter route to which the later traders adhered ever after, in spite of surveys and all else. It is really only upon the ground of his wagons and this cutoff angle that Becknell is entitled to the glory of his title as “father of the Santa Fé trail.” Our prisoners, who nine years before had taken the chance of the far-off Southwestern trade, were willing to take another chance, for no sooner had they reached the States than they outfitted and started back again for the Mexican trade. Their second party, that which made the famous caches referred to in the grandson’s letter above, was made in 1822. By that time there was little glory left for any one; and indeed, when we come to sift it, there was never very much glory in any part of the history of the Santa Fé trail. It was not a pathway of heroes. The true hero trail lay farther to the north, as we shall presently see.