The road from Fort Riley, that we had formerly travelled in going out to the Arkansas River and back, enters the Santa Fé road here at Lost Springs. At this camp there was no timber and no running water--merely a series of water-holes strung along a prairie hollow. This had long been a well-known camping ground; but where the springs were from which it takes the name I never knew, for I never saw any. We pitched our tent near where the Fort Riley road enters the Santa Fé and after supper attended to the usual camp work. After we had groomed and fed our animals the Irishman and I strolled up to the ranch to renew old acquaintance with the proprietor, Jack Costillo, also an Irishman, whom we had previously known as a soldier in the Mounted Rifle Regiment in New Mexico. Costillo was delighted to meet us again and, of course, set out his best for us. We spent a couple of hours very pleasantly talking over old times with him and then returned to our camp. As we walked along, thinking of the Italian name borne by this man, who, as Jack said, "wore the map of Ireland on his face," I remarked: "When I hear such names as O'Shaughnessy, Finnegan, or McCarthy given for an Irishman, they seem natural and Irish enough, but now and then I find an Irishman with what seems to be a very un-Irish name, such as Costillo's, for instance. How do you account for these misfit names, Jack?" "Oh, that's 'asy," replied Jack. "You see, ould Ireland is a sea-girt isle an' is visited by ships of various nations, an' now an' then some foreign sailor, in an Irish port, falls in love with an Irish girl an' marries her, an' the childther, of course, will bear the foreigner's name, though they be as Irish as Paddy's pigs." "Well, that is a reasonable explanation of a question that has occasioned me a good deal of speculation," I answered, "and, accepting your solution of the problem, my mind will be much easier in the future." At these roadside ranches, which had sprung up at every important camping place along the road since the Pike's Peak gold discovery, liquor was sold and a small general assortment kept of such goods as were in demand by travellers. No attempt was made to cultivate the soil or raise crops; they were there merely for the trade of the road and--at points farther out--for Indian trade. They also bought worn-out stock from passing outfits and, after resting and recruiting such animals, sold them to other travellers needing fresh animals. The Santa Fé mail contractors, Hall & Porter, of Independence, Missouri, had established stations at certain ranches, but beyond Council Grove there were, as yet, no regular eating or lodging stations for passengers in the mail-coaches. They had to carry their own bedding and take camp fare with the mail hands--two drivers and a conductor to each coach.