[130] Vermejo creek, next considerable branch of the Canadian from the W. above Cimarron creek. It falls into the Canadian between stations Dover and Dorsey of the A., T. and S. F. R. R.
[131] The Canadian river itself, which Fowler appears to have struck somewhere about the mouth of Tenaja creek, from the E. This is in the vicinity of Maxwell’s station, a noted place in the old days of staging, which I well remember, having arrived there at 5 p. m. of Friday, June 10, 1864.
[132] Position uncertain—see next note.
[133] It is impossible to ascend the Canadian river any distance on such a course, as the river is running due S. along here, after coming E. from the mountains. Fowler was camped last night at some uncertain point on the Canadian and on the present railroad line, which runs due N. through Raton pass, across the boundary between New Mexico and Colorado at 37°, and past Fisher’s peak to Trinidad, on Purgatory river. But Fowler makes altogether too much easting for any such course as this. I understand, after careful consideration of his meager indications, that his “up the crick” so many miles means up the Canadian to the mouth of Chico Rico creek, a branch from the N. E. which, if followed up, would take him through Manco Burro Pass, between the Raton Mesa and the Chico Rico Mesa, to a tributary of Purgatory river; but that, having gone up Chico Rico creek to the confluence of its Una de Gato branch, he follows up the latter to camp at the foot of the Chico Rico Mesa. In no other way can we follow him “up a crick” continuously in anything like the direction or to anything like the distance he gives; and that this was the way he went will presently appear.
[134] Chico Rico Mesa, a part of the general Raton plateau, separated from Raton Mesa proper by the defile known as Manco Burro Pass.
[135] He means the chaparral cock or road-runner, Geococcyx californianus, though he makes its bill about six times too long.
[136] That is to say, Purgatory river, at the mouth of which Lewis Dawson was killed by a grizzly bear: see p. [41], Nov. 13, 1821. Fowler had no name for this large river, excepting that it was Pike’s “1st Fork,” and here speaks of it in terms which recall the tragedy.
[137] Chaquaqua creek, a large branch of Purgatory river, draining N. from Chico Rico Mesa. Crossing this mesa in the direction said, Fowler passes at 37° the line between New Mexico and Colorado at the same place that the Denver, Texas, and Ft. Worth R. R. does now—about long. 103° 53´ W.—and comes down off the mesa about 5 m. due E. of Watervale, Las Animas Co., Col. He keeps down the creek some 10 m. and camps on it, about opposite the westernmost point of the Mesa de Maya.
From this point Fowler makes a break, almost as straight as the crow flies, for the Arkansaw, which he will strike at Coolidge, Kas. It is a long distance across country, about N. E., with no exactly identifiable landmark till we stand him on Two Buttes; and his trail does not coincide, except approximately, with any road I can find laid down on the best modern maps. The nearest I know of is what is called the “probable course” of the wagon road from Cimarron to Granada, on the drainage sheet of Hayden’s Atlas of Colorado, 1877; but the maps I go by are the later ones of the U. S. Geological Survey, 2 m. to the inch. It is a matter of special interest to recover this old trail as closely as possible.
[138] A long lap in the open to a blind camp, and copy a little vitiated by some interlineation not quite clear. But we can follow the trail pretty closely. The “mountain to our right” is the general elevation of the Mesa de Maya, along which Fowler passes about E. N. E., crossing successive dry drains of tributaries of Purgatory river, all running to his left. Rounding the extreme W. point of the Mesa said, Fowler steers past “a small mountain standing by itself,” which appears to be, by a singular coincidence, an isolated part of the general elevation now known as Fowler Mesa. Further on E. along the N. border of the Maya Mesa, is the better-known Mt. Carrizo, capped by Potatoe Butte; the line between Las Animas and Baca counties cuts this isolated elevation about lat. 37° 10´ N., and long. 103° 05´ W. Camp cannot be far from the obscure place called Willow Spring, on one of the collateral sources of Two Butte creek—possibly at that identical water-hole.