AT LORDSBURG
we pass into Arizona. Drummers are everywhere present. They crowd on with their grips and sample cases at every station. The saloon is everywhere present also. At one place, besides the depot building, I saw no business house except a combined saloon and barber shop. The "Tennessee Saloon" was in one place; "This here is a saloon," was the sign on another. After we left San Antonio, the tramps disappear. Up to that point, I could see them looking wistfully at the flying train in day time and at night I could see their camp fires beside the track; but the stations are too far apart and the picking too poor beyond San Antonio for these enterprising travelers. Though the country seems so dry and barren, there are evidences that sometimes they have fearful rain falls. I noticed at several points in Arizona vast areas, covering probably thousands of acres, where at times there are lakes or inland seas. Now the surface is dry and cracked, with not the least sign of water except at one spot where the depression is deepest and there is congregated a great herd of poverty-stricken cattle. The wire fence on either side of the road keeps me company. It makes one think the land is fenced to keep the cattle in and you are expecting to see a great herd every minute; but the fence belongs to the railroad and is intended to keep cattle off the track. Think of a double line of wire fence three thousand miles long; yes, longer than that, for the Southern Pacific goes right on to Portland, Oregon, nearly eight hundred miles north and to Ogden, nearly a thousand miles east of San Francisco and the fences go with it.