WE BREAKFASTED AT EL PASO
—two full days from New Orleans. What horrible tales are told of Mexican and Indian cruelties in the days of long ago, but my Texas friend tells me that everything like ruffianism in all this section is passed; that hunters can, with perfect safety, camp miles away on these plains without fear of molestation. But looking at some of the specimens of men hereabouts, I'd rather do my hunting further East, if sport was what I was after. In spite of the dry climate some people are farming about El Paso. Of course it is done by irrigation, the Rio Grande furnishing the water. Here is where we change time. By our watches it was 8:30 only a little after daylight. They said the only thing perplexing about El Paso is the time. It has four brands of time and the citizen takes his choice. "They used to have four or five other varieties, but so many people became insane in the attempt to keep their watches right and meet appointments, that now they have only four." Between New Orleans and El Paso, Central time is adhered to, Pacific time from there West. The difference is two hours; so if you arrive at El Paso at 11:15 a.m. and wait there an hour and three quarters, you still get away at 11 a.m., and experience no delay. Then there is local or sun time and Mexican time besides. "Wonder if all the boys who read these lines understand about the change from sun time to railroad time?" The 12 o'clock mark, when I was a boy, was what we blew the dinner horn by and we got along first-rate; but now the railroads have taken us in hand and changed all that. Here at El Paso, they seem to have done their worst on old time—cheating him out of two hours when going West, or maybe they only borrow the two hours and pay it back on the trip East.