He left Santa Fe in a sweeping gallop, and…

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from Santa Fe to Independence in- side of six days. It was forty years ago that he undertook the terrible feat. It was to be the supreme effort of his life, and he sent a half- dozen of the swiftest horses ahead to be station- ed at different points for use on the ride. He left Santa Fe in a sweeping gallop, and that was the pace he kept up during nearly every hour of the time until he fell fainting from his foam covered horse in the square in Independence. No man could keep up with the rider and he would have killed every horse in the west rather than have failed his undertak- ing. It took just five days and nineteen hours to perform the feat, and it cost the lives of sev- eral of his best horses. After being carried into a room of the old hotel at Independence, Aubrey lay for forty-eight hours in a dead stupor be- fore he came to his senses. He never would have recovered from the shock had it not been for his wonderful constitution. The feat was unanimously regarded by western men as the greatest exhibition of strength and endurance ever known on the plains. After his ride Aubrey became the lion of the west, and was dined and feted at St. Louis as though he had been a conquering hero. He