Still more would I like to go over again the many magnificent trips made across the interior plains, mountains, and deserts before the days of the completed Pacific Railroad, with regular “Doughertys” drawn by four smart mules, one soldier with carbine or loaded musket in hand seated alongside the driver; two in the back seat with loaded rifles swung in the loops made for them; the lightest kind of baggage, and generally a bag of oats to supplement the grass, and to attach the mules to their camp.  With an outfit of two, three, or four of such, I have made journeys of as much as eighteen hundred miles in a single season, usually from post to post, averaging in distance about two hundred miles a week, with as much regularity as is done today by the steam-car its five hundred miles a day; but those days are gone, and, though I recognize the great national advantages of the more rapid locomotion, I cannot help occasionally regretting the change.  One instance in 1866 rises in my memory, which I must record:  Returning eastward from Fort Garland, we ascended the Rocky Mountains to the Sangre-de-Cristo Pass.  The road descending the mountain was very rough and sidling.  I got out with my rifle, and walked ahead about four miles, where I awaited my “Dougherty.”  After an hour or so I saw, coming down the road, a wagon; and did not recognize it as my own till quite near.  It had been upset, the top all mashed in, and no means at hand for repairs.  I consequently turned aside from the main road to a camp of cavalry near the Spanish Peaks, where we were most hospitably received by Major A——­ and his accomplished wife.  They occupied a large hospital-tent, which about a dozen beautiful greyhounds were free to enter at will.  The ambulance was repaired, and the next morning we renewed our journey, escorted by the major and his wife on their fine saddle-horses.

They accompanied us about ten miles of the way; and, though age has since begun to tell on them, I shall ever remember them in their pride and strength as they galloped alongside our wagons down the long slopes of the Spanish Peaks in a driving snow-storm.

And yet again would it be a pleasant task to recall the many banquets and feasts of the various associations of officers and soldiers, who had fought the good battles of the civil war, in which I shared as a guest or host, when we could indulge in a reasonable amount of glorification at deeds done and recorded, with wit, humor, and song; these when memory was fresh, and when the old soldiers were made welcome to the best of cheer and applause in every city and town of the land.  But no!  I must hurry to my conclusion, for this journey has already been sufficiently prolonged.