No dew falls in that country and a good many of the people who live there would rather sleep on the ground during the summer months than on a good feather bed. A man can sleep on the ground there nine months in the year without taking a cold.
I left Alamogordo the next day on a passenger train as a "coal passenger," that is, I had to help the fireman shovel coal for my fare to El Paso.
About half of this trip lay in the foothills of the mountains, and then we reached the mountains proper.
Gradually the train rose foot by foot (the train was going very slowly now) until we had attained a height of over 5,000 feet above the level of the track.
The journey was now through the clouds, and in some places the fog was so thick I could not see the cars that were following behind us, but in a few moments the spiral winding tracks would carry us on the other side of the mountains, where the sun was shining brightly, and I could see far down the beautiful valleys to some distant mountain peak over seventy-five miles away.
It was the first time I had ever seen the mountains, and enraptured with their beauty, I forgot to throw coal down for the fireman.
The engineer, noticing my abstraction, called:
"Hey, come down here a minute."
I crawled into the cab.
"Where are you from?" he asked, good naturedly.