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After the big battle Mrs. McSween lived four years in Lincoln in a new residence she built opposite San Juan Church, almost on the spot where she had had her memorable interviews with Colonel Dudley. Two years after McSween's death, she married George L. Barber, a lawyer. When John Chisum turned over to her two hundred red heifers in payment of a debt he had owed to McSween for legal services, she moved to Three Rivers, where she established a cattle ranch and became known as "the Cattle Queen of New Mexico." Before leaving Lincoln, which had been the background of so many tragic experiences, she sold the old McSween store to Tom Larue. Having disposed of her cattle ranch in 1917 to Albert B. Fall, United States Senator and Secretary of the Interior under President Harding, she moved to White Oaks.
White Oaks lies in a beautiful little cup of a valley in the Jicarilla Mountains twelve miles from Carrizozo, a railroad town on the plains. As you drive toward it, you catch your first view of the town from a rise in the caƱon road. You are surprised at its impressive appearance. White Oaks, you think, must be a busy, bustling place. You see at a distance long rows of brick and stone business buildings lining the main street and, dotted over a wide area, handsome residences in tree-shaded yards. You splash across a creek in a deep arroyo and turn into the main street. If you were surprised at first at what you thought a vision of prosperity, you are amazed now to find only silence. All the stores are dark and deserted, except one in which a gray-bearded merchant smokes his pipe and waits for trade that rarely comes. Rows of big plate-glass windows, gray with dust and cobwebs, blink out upon the dreary emptiness of the weed-grown street. The sidewalks are caved in. Paint has peeled