peared to
be fully satisfied by the father answering: "Yes, if whiskey is put on
it."

Crowds of people were out at every city and town we passed through
awaiting our arrival. Some had bouquets of beautiful flowers for the
soldiers containing notes of kind words and wishes, and signed by the
giver. Some gave us small baskets of nicely prepared rations. These were
what suited us most, and were very highly appreciated by every one who
was fortunate enough to get one.

Our train passed through many places without stopping. We saw crowds of
people at those places with bouquets and various gifts of kindness and
appreciation which they had no opportunity to give us. Whenever our
train stopped it would only be for a few minutes, and there was only
time enough to receive the little tokens of kindness and good will,
exchange a very few words, and we would again be off.

CHAPTER III.

Traveling through western Texas and the plains of New Mexico is very
mountainous and lonely. Villages of prairie dogs here and there seem to
be about all the living things that the traveler sees. These little
animals burrow deep in the ground, thousands of them close together, and
this is why it is called a prairie dog town. I was told that these
little dogs live mostly on roots and drink no water. I give this as it
was told me, and do not know how true it is. One thing which I noticed
was that we would travel two or three hundred miles and not see any
water courses.

The section that I was with was detained about three hours at El Paso,
Texas, on account of some trouble on the road ahead of us. Many of us
took advantage of this to look about the city. A considerable change of
temperature was noted, it being much cooler than at New Orleans. Before
the next morning we were passing through New Mexico. It was cold enough
to wear an overcoat, but as we only had blankets every man had one drawn
close around him, and was then shivering with cold. This cold weather
continued until the Rocky Mountains were crossed, and we began to
descend the Pacific Slope.

Crossing the deserts of Arizona was disagreeable. The white sand from a
distance looks like snow, and is so dry and light that it is lifted
about by the wind. Some places it will drift several feet deep. The
railroad company kept men employed all the time shoveling sand from the
track. Nothing but some scattering, scrubby bushes grows in the deserts.
Almost any time looking from the cars