The Boy Scouts of the Air in Indian Land

There she comes, exclaimed a boy, one of a crowd awaiting the evening train in the hot little box of a depot at Silver City, New Mexico. A speck of yellow had suddenly appeared far down the light, worn rails to the east. Fifty loungers moved forward. The evening train was coming at last.
If mother don't look out, added the speaker, who was a tall, slender young chap with strikingly black hair and eyes, she'll miss the train an' the folks that are coming. Mother seems to like to be late—always.
Don't get excited, Jerry, broke in a second boy, this one with big shoulders, a square determined face with a winning smile, and, his chief characteristic, a big mop of yellow hair. I think Ike and your mother are coming right now.
While the headlight was yet only a growing star on the far-away plain, a military hack, drawn by two nervous horses in charge of a colored soldier in uniform, dashed up to the now lively depot in a cloud of dust.
Those awaiting the arrival of the train made a fair picture of the people living in that part of the half-desert Southwest. There were miners, soldiers, sheepmen, freighters, loafers not easily classified, and the usual mixture of Mexicans and civilized Indians. The arrival of the train meant little to any of these except that it brought the daily mail, strangers in the shape of prospectors, or drummers who might spend a few dollars, and nearly always some one going to the Fort.
All soldiers know Fort Bayard. It isn't a real fort any more, although a few cannon sit idly about the big white stockade and new brick buildings, but the tired and sick soldier in the Philippines, in California or in New York, knows that here, when all else fails, he may be sent to find rest and new health. Uncle Sam has selected the old post as the best place in the United States to put new life into his ailing soldiers.
That's why, the Indian and his troubles having disappeared, and consequently the need for armed militia, that old Fort Bayard has been dismantled, new buildings put up, and the old structures repaired and whitewashed and put in charge of a medical staff.