There was nothing of special interest on this trip although the night we camped at Dick Wooton's there was a heavy snow and the major spent a good part of the night looking after the comfort of his men and horses. After crossing this spur of the mountains the weather was pleasant and the country free from snow and we reached Fort Union without further incident. I returned by stage to Fort Garland and arrived at that post the forepart of December and was there awaiting orders until the 18th. The weather was cold, Fort Garland being at an altitude of about seven thousand feet above sea level, and it was comfortable to be with my wife and little girl, and in good quarters again.
General Kautz had taken General Alexander's place as post commander, but Dr. Happersett, the post surgeon, and the other officers were the same as when we arrived the preceding April. The social features of the post were charming and I hoped it would be my good fortune to remain there during the winter, but a few days after my arrival orders came for me to report to the commanding officer at Fort Stanton, New Mexico, for duty. We started on December 18th and the thermometer registered eighteen degrees below zero that morning. We were well equipped for the trip, having four mules to the ambulance and a six-mule team and wagon for our baggage. The question may occur to some of my readers how could all your household goods be carried in one wagon? We did not have much to carry, particularly in the way of furniture. The quarters at the different military posts were furnished by the quartermaster with stoves, tables, bedsteads and all kinds of furniture that would be cumbersome to move. We carried folding chairs, carpets, bedding and numerous household necessities and comforts with us, but one wagon was sufficient for this purpose in addition to carrying grain and hay for the mules from one government supply station to another. On most of the routes traveled there were government stations where grain and forage were kept for the animals used in government transportation. We started early, having forty miles to make that day to reach Conejos (Jackrabbit) the first government station on the route. We heated bricks for our feet and by drawing the curtains around the ambulance, it was made quite comfortable. We crossed the Rio Grande on the ice and reached Conejos in the evening and had a very comfortable place for the night. We remained one day at Conejos for supplies of grain and hay for the mules. For the next three days and two nights we were in deep snow all the way, and of course made slow progress, and the escort melted snow for water for ourselves and the animals during this time. We hoped to reach San Juan on the Rio Grande by the end of the third day, but were apprehensive, for we knew we had to cross the Rio Chama, a stream that had acquired an unenviable reputation because of its quicksand. We reached this stream just at dusk of the third day and for the first time in three days saw the friendly lamplights at a Mexican village a short distance above the ford. This was my first acquaintance with quicksand, and I would know better now. We should have unfastened the mules from the wagon, and broken the ice, which was not strong enough to hold them up, and thus made the way clear so we could cross without stopping. To stop is fatal. In place of doing this, we expected the mules to break the ice as they went. About the middle of the stream was a sand-bar only slightly covered with ice and water and the water had been shallow over to this bar, but when the mules came into the deep water beyond, the leaders refused to break the ice, the team stopped, and the wagon gradually settled down until the running gear and bed rested on the sand-bar. I ordered the team unhitched and the ice broken so we could get around with the ambulance, and we made the crossing without difficulty. It was then quite dark and I decided to ask for a volunteer to remain with the wagon and the balance of us would go on to San Juan.
I called the men together, and asked if any one of them would volunteer to stay with the wagon over night. An Irishman stepped out and said, "Yis Doctor, I will stay with it." It seems to me that in a case like this, or for that matter in any emergency, one can always depend on the Irishman. I knew his habits at the post, for he was in the guardhouse occasionally for drunkenness, so I said to him, "Look here, this is not an easy job. If those Mexicans up there knew this wagon was in here they might give you trouble, and if they found you drunk they would probably kill you and loot the wagon. Now I am going to leave a bottle of whiskey with you, for it is a very cold night and you will need some before morning, so be careful and do not take too much of it. Get out and walk when you get too cold to sleep but don't get drunk for your life may be in danger if you are not able to take care of yourself." "Yis Sir, Doctor, I understand that sir, and I will keep sober, sir, and I will take care of the stuff all right, sir." We left him there and the balance of the escort with the six mule team, and my wife and baby and I in the ambulance, started on to San Juan some six miles away. We got off the road as we neared the station, and our ambulance got into an irrigation ditch and turned over on one side, but did no harm and we soon had it right again, and after some trouble in finding a road, finally reaching San Juan about midnight. We had wandered around a good deal in trying to find the road again.
The following day the escort returned to the Rio Grande, and found the Irishman all right and only about half of the whiskey gone. He had fully merited all my confidence. They unloaded the wagon and slid the contents across the river on the ice, and by digging and prying with the tools they had taken from the station, and hitching all ten mules to the wagon, they drew it out the quick-sand and across the river and arrived at the station with everything in good shape about dark that evening. The morning before Christmas my wife and I concluded to ride to Santa Fe about twenty miles away for breakfast. It was a stinging cold morning, and we had to go over a little mountain range on the way, but the roads were hard and smooth as a pavement, and we made the trip at a clipping gait, but were thoroughly chilled by the time we reached Santa Fe. There was no fire in our room and I went to the landlord, Alex McDowell and asked him to send us something to warm us up. In a few minutes a man came in with a tray and glasses and something he called Tom-and-Jerry and hoped we would like it. I think I never tasted anything so delicious, and I believe my wife appreciated it as much as I did, and the effect was marvelous. We were soon warm and comfortable, and by comparison with the experience of the past few days, it seemed a paradise indeed. This was my first acquaintance with Tom-and-Jerry, and while I became better acquainted with these gentlemen afterwards, we were never very cordial friends but I never met them under such favorable conditions as on the morning after that cold ride over the mountains. We did some shopping on the 24th and remained over Christmas at the hotel. The morning after Christmas we again started on our way to Fort Stanton.
CHAPTER XI.
The trip from Santa Fe to Fort Stanton was not an attractive one. There was not much snow and no mountains to cross but the route was uninhabited and dreary, consisting of alternate stretches of timber and alkali lands, until we neared Fort Stanton when the timber improved in quality, and the country generally was more inviting. We reached Fort Stanton on the second of January and were at once assigned to comfortable quarters which we occupied the following day but stayed with a brother officer's family the first night. I found Fort Stanton a very desirable post at which to serve. Major Clendenning was in command and Doctor Fitch was post surgeon until my arrival. The fort and military reservation were beautifully located on what was then the Mescalero Apache reservation in the White mountains, El Capitan being the nearest peak, and on a little stream called Rio Bonito, (pretty little river) and it was an exceptionally pretty stream. Anywhere east it would have been called a creek or branch. It was a mountain stream of clear cold water and the post was supplied with water through a ditch taken out from the river at some distance above the post, and carried to the highest point on the parade ground, and from there distributed each way around the parade ground and then taken to the corral and the stables lower down the valley. In front of each officer's quarters a barrel was sunk in the ditch to a depth where the water would almost reach the top of the staves and the up and down stream sides were cut away as low as the bottom of the ditch, thus allowing the water to pass through freely. Small trout were often dipped up in the water taken from these barrels. Fort Stanton is located at an altitude of a little over six thousand feet and is not only a beautiful location but is a very healthy post. It was abandoned long ago as a military post but is still owned by the government and used as a sanitarium for tuberculosis. I have visited it since it was converted in to a sanitarium, and for cleanliness and general sanitary conditions it did not compare with the post when used for military purposes.
In those days game was plentiful in the mountains and the duck shooting along the pretty little river was exceptionally good.
What was afterwards known as the Lincoln County War was just then in its incipiency. Considerable shooting was done between the cattle and sheep men, and the death of a sheepherder—always a Mexican—or a cattleman, was of frequent occurrence. Word came to the post one evening, that a deputy sheriff had been shot while attempting to settle some difficulty between the cattle and the sheep men, and a surgeon was requested to go to Lincoln, the county seat some ten miles down the valley to see him. Major Clendenning sent for me and explained the matter, but said if he were in my place he would not go, as those Mexicans would just as leave take a shot at me as anybody else. He said, however, that if I decided to go I should have the ambulance and any help I needed. I decided no help was necessary, but took the ambulance and driver and went to Lincoln that night. Mr. Mills, the deputy sheriff who had been shot had a half-brother at the post by the name of Stanley and I had heard the story of one of their shooting experiences when little fellows. They were practising with pistols and had become so expert that one day they tried the experiment of holding something out in one hand for the other to shoot at, but as this was not exciting enough, one of them extended his arm and pointed out his index finger and said to the other: "See if you can clip the end of that." He clipped a little too much for I had seen Stanley's hand and the finger was off at the first joint from the end. "You fool, you, you took too much. Now give me a chance." The other being willing to play fair, extended his finger the same way and lost the same amount of finger. This was the story, and I was curious to see Mr. Mills' hand which I took good care to observe while dressing his wound and found it almost exactly like Stanley's. Mr. Mills' wound was by a shot that entered near the heart, struck a rib and did not enter the plural cavity, but followed the rib around and came out on the back and was not a very serious wound.