ary posts in the days, of the "adobe," the "jacal,"
and "dug-out," when a board floor and a shingle roof were luxuries
expected by none except the commanding officer. I can see, in
memory, a beautiful young city-bred lady, who had married a poor
second-lieutenant, and followed him to his post on the plains,
whose quarters were in a "dug-out" ten feet by about fifteen, seven
feet high, with a dirt roof; four feet of the walls were the
natural earth, the other three of sod, with holes for windows and
corn-sacks for curtains. This little lady had her Saratoga trunk,
which was the chief article of furniture; yet, by means of a rug on
the ground-floor, a few candle-boxes covered with red cotton calico
for seats, a table improvised out of a barrel-head, and a fireplace
and chimney excavated in the back wall or bank, she had transformed
her "hole in the ground" into a most attractive home for her young
warrior husband; and she entertained me with a supper consisting of
the best of coffee, fried ham, cakes, and jellies from the
commissary, which made on my mind an impression more lasting than
have any one of the hundreds of magnificent banquets I have since
attended in the palaces and mansions of our own and foreign lands.

Still more would I like to go over again the many magnificent trips
made across the interior plains, mountains, and deserts before the
days of the completed Pacific Railroad, with regular "Doughertys"
drawn by four smart mules, one soldier with carbine or loaded
musket in hand seated alongside the driver; two in the back seat
with loaded rifles swung in the loops made for them; the lightest
kind of baggage, and generally a bag of oats to supplement the
grass, and to attach the mules to their camp. With an outfit of
two, three, or four of such, I have made journeys of as much as
eighteen hundred miles in a single season, usually from post to
post, averaging in distance about two hundred miles a week, with as
much regularity as is done today by the steam-car its five hundred
miles a day; but those days are gone, and, though I recognize the
great national advantages of the more rapid locomotion, I cannot
help occasionally regretting the change. One instance in 1866
rises in my memory, which I must record: Returning eastward from
Fort Garland, we ascended the Rocky Mountains to the Sangre-de-
Cristo Pass. The road descending the mountain was very rough and
sidling. I got out with my rifle, and walked ahea