Our quarters were just as we had left them but with the added feeling of desolation, and from that time we frequently discussed the question of leaving the service. It being then well toward winter we deferred it until spring, and we spent the time until then performing our duties in a perfunctory way, and planning and rejecting plans as we made them, being undecided where to locate. I spent a part of the time in hunting with more or less success, but more as a recreation than as a matter of interest. On one of these trips I killed three antelopes with two shots, being the only ones seen that day. I managed to get in good range and when the first one fell the other two ran together and stood looking at the fallen one. They stood so that a shot through the flank of one would hit the other just back of the shoulder. I dressed the first one and got it on the horse and found the second some two hundred yards away, but by the time I had it on the horse it was too dark to track the third. Next morning I went out and found only the bones and some pieces of the hide, the wolves having cared for the rest of it. On another occasion I took an orderly with me to care for my horse in case I found occasion to stalk any game, but when we got into a valley which was the customary route for Indians from the White mountains on the east, to the Magdalenas west of the river, some horsemen came in at the head of the valley, and set up a yell and at that distance we took them for Indians and did not wait for a closer acquaintance but made for the post with all possible speed.

My wife visited that winter at Fort Selden with Mrs. Conrad, wife of Lieutenant Conrad, who was quartermaster at Fort Stanton when we were there, and who died at sea on his way back from the Spanish war in Cuba.

We were in the habit at Fort McRae of trading an army ration to which I was entitled, in addition to my pay, to Mexicans for vegetables, eggs, etc., or paying cash as the occasion offered. One day a Mexican brought a grain sack full of onions and we weighed them and found they weighed a little over forty-one pounds. I agreed to pay him four cents a pound, but said to him we will call it forty pounds and allow the balance for the weight of the sack. He could not speak English but I could talk Spanish enough to make him understand and he would nod his head and say "Bueno" (Good) but when I counted out the money he did not seem satisfied. I went over it repeatedly showing it was one dollar and sixty cents and he would nod his head and say "Bueno" but went away and brought another Mexican with him who understood and talked English, and when he heard the transaction repeated he called his fellow countryman a fool and they walked away together. I counted the onions after they had gone, and there were just twenty-four of them. I like to tell this story to my friends, for while they smile their assent, there is an expression on their faces that is at least suggestive. Two or three of the onions that I measured were over eighteen inches in circumference. These onions were raised in the Rio Grande valley and were as crisp as celery, and comparatively free from the characteristic sting of the ordinary onion. Eggs were fifty cents per dozen and if one did not need any today, they would take them back home, and perhaps bring them tomorrow at the same price, but would not take less. We paid one dollar per pound for butter to Mrs. Jack Martin who sent it to us by the messenger who went there for our mail, and it was very choice butter.

At the Sutler's store one day I was introduced to a Mr. Garcia, a young man of fine appearance, and who could talk English well, who had returned from the university for his vacation. I found him very interesting and intelligent, and while we were talking, Mr. Ayers, the post trader, brought us some native wine which we sipped while in conversation. He belonged to a wealthy family of Spanish descent and was quite a different type from the ordinary Mexican, and would compare favorably with our average university student. After he had gone Mr. Ayers told me his name in full was "Hasoos Christo Garcia." I spell it this way to give the Spanish pronunciation, and not the Spanish spelling. In the middle name the accent is on the first syllable. In English the name would be Jesus Christ Garcia, and this is not mentioned in this startling way, in any spirit of irreverence, for a name that is held sacred over a great part of the world, but is done for the purpose of showing the difference in the customs of different countries. Jesus Christ is almost as common a given name among the Mexicans as James or John is with us.

While at Fort McRae Mr. Fountain had heard of a beautiful place on the Rio Polomas, a little stream that enters the Rio Grande from the west a few miles below the post, and that he thought might be worth investigating. I agreed to join him and we had a few troopers detached as an escort, and went to see it. On the way we passed through the little Mexican village of Polomas, where a Jew had established a business and who had told Mr. Fountain of the proposed place of visit. He joined us and acted as guide for the trip. On the way while working our way through a thick undergrowth Mr. Fountain and I became separated from the men and came out on a pretty open park of a few acres in extent, about the middle of which was an immense cinnamon bear, apparently waiting to see what caused the disturbance in the brush. On our coming into the open he took to his heels and we followed, the men having joined us, and firing our pistols and shouting, but when my horse caught the scent of the bear, he just stopped and stood there trembling with fright, and all my efforts to make him go by spurring and cuffing him, were unavailing. I could not move him, but sat there and awaited his pleasure. After a bit he began to move cautiously but was much frightened, and I did not join the crowd until they had chased the bear into the rocks at the foot of the canon, and had returned to the place we intended to visit. It was a beautiful place indeed, and a beautiful stream of water came out from the side of the bluff some twenty feet above the valley, and meandered down to the main stream. The valley was not wide but impressed both Mr. Fountain and myself, as a desirable place to establish a ranch, which he was desirous of doing for a brother he wished to set up in business. I agreed to join him in the enterprise, and we sent for a Studebaker wagon and the necessary implements and outfit for starting a ranch. I afterwards disposed of my interest to Mr. Fountain, and have since learned that he had his brother come out, and fitted him up with stock, etc., sufficient for a start, but that the Indians took a part in the affair; destroyed his ranch and killed his cattle. I have since then, often thought of it as a desirable place for a cattle ranch.

In the spring of 1875, there having been no medical examining board ordered, and so far as we knew no prospect of one, we fully decided to try our lives in a different way, and made preparations accordingly. I ordered a metallic casket for the body of our little daughter, believing that the post would soon be abandoned, and we could not bear the idea of leaving her in that wretched place, and the first part of May we packed such household goods as we thought desirable to take with us, only leaving such as I might need after my wife should start, it being my intention to go during the summer or early fall. My wife started about the middle of May and soon afterwards the casket came, and the captain gave me a detail of men to take up the body of our little girl and place it in the quartermaster's storehouse until we should decide where to have it shipped. This we were to do after I should join my wife and decided on a location for a home. My wife had gone to her old friend's home west of Oswego, Kansas, where she had stopped on a previous occasion when we thought of leaving the service. On application, Doctor Lyon returned to his old post at Fort McRae and I went to Stanton in July and about the first of September together with Mr. Clark, who was going on leave of absence, I proceeded to the end of the railroad at Las Animas, Colorado, and thence to Leavenworth, Kansas, where I reported to the medical director of the department and left the service October 30th, 1875.

Upon my return to Fort Stanton from Fort McRae I found Mr. Stanley, the one who had his finger shot off when a boy, was just able to hobble about again from an experience he had with a cinnamon bear. He had gone out to some ranch where they were losing some of their stock, particularly their pigs, by what they thought to be a bear, and Stanley went out to kill it. He was an excellent shot, was fearless and deliberate and found the bear as he expected, but in some unaccountable way which he could not explain, he failed to stop it, and the result was most disastrous to himself. It had torn one side of his face away, and had broken both legs and one arm, before leaving him. They found him the next day and brought him to a hospital and he was able to get around on crutches when I saw him, but would be a cripple for life. The ranchmen went out and finished the bear, but it was found he had nine shots through his body before giving up the fight.

The military reservation at Fort Stanton was the largest of any post at which I served, and is located as before mentioned on what was then known as the Mescalero Apache Indian reservation. These Indians were considered friendly, and so far as I know have remained so, and they are the only tribe of Indians of which I have acquaintance who cremate their dead. I was invited one day to go with the hay contractor, who intended making the rounds of his various hay camps, and on the way we passed through an Indian camp not far from the post at which there was a sick Indian. We stopped to inquire as to his condition. It seems that a day or so before they had gone to the post for medicine, and had said the patient was suffering great pain, and asked for some physic. The post surgeon, a Spaniard by birth, and educated abroad, understood the term physic in its generic sense and not as it is so universally used by us, and had sent him opiates, when a cathartic was probably indicated. When we saw him that day, which we did from our saddles, as we did not dismount, he was greatly swollen up, and when we passed the same neighborhood a few days afterwards, the Indian had died and his tent and all his belongings including a pony to ride, had been burned and the band had moved across the river and established a new camp.