He was a grand man. Up to this moment justice has not been done to him historically. He discovered the Caverns, in the good old American way of adventuring. He let himself down with a rope to discover and get acquainted with the unknown."

SENATOR DENNIS CHAVEZ
of New Mexico

A young man stands poised at the brink of a black, gaping hole in the side of a mountain to which he has been drawn by the myriad swarm of bats streaming from its mouth. A moment of decision; and he descends, suspended by a frail strand of rope, into the perilous darkness. His discovery and exploration of the vast subterranean world, his return-picking his way along a tenuous trail—and the subsequent recognition of his discovery as a "wonder of the world'" is as archtypical a story of courage and the unquenchable human thirst to know as the myths of Jason and Theseus.

The complete story of Jim White, discoverer, explorer and champion of the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, is told for the first time in ONE MAN's DREAM—a human and exciting story of a neglected but, nevertheless, great American. Jim White did not have the cupidity to make a "good thing" out of his discovery. He did not have the "push" to establish for himself the status he deserved, nor the sophistication to protect himself against the shrewd men who eventually were to deprive him of his livelihood and, worse still, his way of life. What Jim did have was persistence and a dream—a dream that extended beyond his personal fate, and is the mark of a great man.

Jim's dream eventually came true. "His cave" is now famous as the Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and visited by more than four hundred fifty thousand people a year. And Jim lived to see his reward in the thousands of faces that lit up at the sight of his astonishing discovery. The way in which the dream was born and came true, and the price Jim paid in giving it birth constitute the theme of this thrilling book.

From the dust jacket