The Sutler's store at Fort Stanton was up-stream some distance and just around the point of a little canon that led down to the river. A path from the corner of the parade ground led up to the store but there was only a narrow space between the point of the canon and the ditch that supplied the post with water. There was also a bridge across the ditch at the Sutler's store, for the convenience of getting in and taking out goods. One dark night I had been up to the store and started home, and after going a short distance, I concluded I had crossed the ditch on the bridge, instead of going along the narrow strip between the ditch and canon. To save time and retracing of steps I concluded to jump into the ditch. I knew it was wide and required a good jump but I found that instead of jumping the ditch, I had jumped off the bluff into the canon. Fortunately it had been made a dumping ground for chips and trash from the wood-yard, and I landed on this trash and rolled the balance of the way to the bottom of the canon among the rocks, probably twenty-five or thirty feet. My first thought was that I was seriously hurt, but after groaning a while and finding no bones broken, I got up and felt my way out at the top of the canon near the Sutler's store. I was very sore for a few days but no serious injuries resulted.
In March of this year Captain Fechet (pronounced Fe-sha, accent on the last syllable), with his troop of cavalry, was ordered to go over on the Jornada del Muerto, and try to find a shorter route across that desert from Fort Stanton to Fort Selden, and I was sent along. We took the usual route to Fort McRae, where I again met Dr. Lyons, the post surgeon, whom I had visited at this point when I was post surgeon at Fort Craig in 1869. We found the doctor at dinner when we arrived. The cloth was spread at one end of the table and just beyond the cloth, at the farther end, was a human skull, with the necessary instruments, which the doctor had been dissecting. It struck me as a rather strange mixture of diet and scientific investigation. It is hardly necessary to say that the doctor was not a married man, for no woman would stand for that sort of table decoration, but would probably prefer a bunch of flowers as a center-piece for the table. Some unfortunate had been fished out of the river, and no relations having been found, the body was considered of service for a better knowledge of anatomy.
From Fort McRae we went to the Aleman, or as it was better known, Jack Martin's, where we stayed over night, and from there we went to Fort Selden and remained several days. While there the captain and I made a trip to Las Cruces where we remained over night, and had a very pleasant evening with some Catholic priests, where we were cordially received and entertained. On our return to Fort Selden we again took up the march to Fort Stanton but did not leave the beaten track either going or coming. We had taken some half-dozen Mescalero Apache Indians along with us as guides and scouts, but I could never see that we accomplished anything by the trip, or that we made any effort to do so.
Along about the first of April I received a suit of clothes from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, that I had ordered the previous September upon my return from the summer camp on the Rio Grande. It had not occurred to me that I might have changed some in physique, but when I got the clothes I found that I could only wear the pants by putting a V-shape in the back of the waistband and I could only wear the vest by inserting pieces below the arm-holes, but the coat was entirely too small to be of any practical service. My experience in the mountains had evidently made quite a different type of man out of me, and I should have had my measure taken again before sending orders to the tailor.
Soon after our return from the trip to find a new route across the Jornada, I received a letter from Doctor Lyons asking me to exchange stations with him. I wrote back that I would make the change if he would make the application, which he did, and orders soon came directing the change. We started from Stanton the latter part of April, with the usual ambulance, and wagon and baggage, and an escort to care for us on the way. Between the White mountains and the lower range to the west is quite a wide valley which is called the Malpais (or bad country) near the center of which is a lava flow a few hundred yards wide. The crater, or peak from which it came is not in the mountain range as one would naturally suppose it to be but stands out near the middle of the valley, maybe ten miles above where we crossed. The outlines of the streams are quite distinct until some distance below, where it is lost in a great white plain of alkali. There had been much work done to make a road across this lava flow passable for vehicles, but it was still very rough when we crossed it, so much so that my wife preferred to walk, and nearly wore her shoe soles out in doing so. When did this lava flow occur? I don't know. Maybe ten thousand years ago, but it looked as though it might have been last week.
There were quite a number of little cone-shaped mounds in this valley, and I examined some of those close to the road. They varied in size, and none that I saw were more than ten or twelve feet in height, and they all had craters, containing blackish looking water. In some of them the water seemed to be higher than the valley in which they were located.
We camped on the second night in the foothills of the San Andres range, and the following evening at the Oho De Anija. These springs were interesting because of the great amount of painted and broken pottery to be found nearby. I think some excavating might bring to light whole pieces of value to the archaeologist. The spring is located only a few miles from Paraja a on the Rio Grande, and at the extreme northern limit of the Jornada del Muerto, and the next day we arrived at Fort McRae.