This book tells about the Spanish pioneers in the Southwest, their triumphs and their betrayals. Other than the Jesuits, the Spaniards who settled and explored in the New World are seldom written about. The Spanish pioneering of the Americas was the largest and longest and most marvelous feat of mankind in all history. Charles Lummis (1859-1928) was an author, journalist, editor, photographer, Los Angeles city librarian, adventurer, close friend and Harvard classmate of Theodore Roosevelt, and champion of the American Indian. He walked from Cincinnati to Los Angeles in the winter of 1884-1885 to accept a job on the then three-year old Los Angeles Times.