2 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



We had got beyond the stage of belief 

 in pamphlets a green and transitory stage 

 in this land of glowing periods yet a solemn 

 silence fell upon our party as the omnibus 

 careened over the sand-billows of a New 

 Mexican village street. Through a day and 

 a night of Texan desert we had been sup- 

 ported by visions of the wonderful fruit- 

 valley in Southern New Mexico, whose fer- 

 tility and other attractions were to compen- 

 sate the health-seeker for loss of home and 

 friends the well-worn shibboleth, in fact, as 

 old as it is false, that everything has its 

 compensations. Every mile of the forty the 

 train leisurely rumbled over after leaving the 

 border- city of El Paso was eagerly scanned ; 

 yet it was still desert the Rio Grande a mere 

 thread on one side, rugged mountains on the 

 other, and between these the interminable 

 sandy waste, gloomily dotted with mesquite, 

 sagebrush, grama, and the like. Nevertheless, 

 these were mountains, and gaining, too, in 

 beauty and grandeur with every mile ; and 

 upon them the mountain-worshippers, starved 

 upon the Texan plains, fixed eyes at once 

 hopeful and devout. As the train drew 



