On every hand, as far as I could see, was nothing but barren sand hills, broken here and there by high mountain ridges.
In some places we would go forty or fifty miles without seeing a sign of human habitation, then suddenly we would come upon a small collection of adobe huts, that is, huts built of sun-dried, mud bricks.
These little houses have a flat roof, and some of them are no taller than a man's head. They are occupied by Mexicans and Indians.
A big rain would destroy all these dwellings; but rain is almost as scarce in this desolate, sun-baked region as snow is in the Torrid Zone.
When it does rain there and a man's clothes are wet, it takes but ten minutes for the air to dry him off again.
From where I was sitting in the door of the coke car thousands upon thousands of jack rabbits, cotton tails and prairie dogs could be seen dodging in and out among the rocks and cactus trees.
Once, just before dark came on, a solitary cowboy, wearing high boots and a big sombrero, mounted on a spirited young pony, dashed across the tracks ahead of the train and disappeared behind the low mountain ridges toward the sunset—and such a grand, beautiful sunset that was!—the sun slowly sinking behind the distant mountain peaks, and the whole heavens lit up with a perfect flood of golden beauty, was a scene, though I live to be a hundred years old, I shall never forget.
Nowhere else in all the world, I believe, are the sunsets so gloriously beautiful as in Arizona or New Mexico.
Lost in spell-bound admiration and silent reflection, I sat in the car door until long after dark.