Provided with books and newspapers, and friends to converse with, as well as with sights to see, we had, however, no reason to complain that time hung heavy on our hands as the train sped on. The books were very utilitarian, it is true--Reports of Chambers of Commerce, statistics and papers connected with railway and commercial enterprise and the like. But our directors took to that literature with avidity, and aided by maps and tables, copiously furnished to them, seemed bent on passing with honours in a competitive examination anent the American railway system. There were always, close at hand in the cars, competent authorities to answer questions, or able champions to engage in controversy, and as I heard all the subtle contentions, which I did not understand, concerning signalling and baggage checking, gauges and engines, curves and gradients, freights and fares, I was set to think what the field had been in which all the ingenuity and talent displayed in dealing with such topics were exercised in pre-railway days. These discussions were mostly connected with the consideration of profits and percentages, and that was a neutral ground on which the combatants manoeuvred their facts and figures as in a natural "_schauplatz_". There were times when such investigations ran down like a clock, and no one wound them up again for a few hours, and then my friends digested the remains they found on the field of battle and strengthened themselves for friendly jousting. Not very long ago there would have been exceedingly good sporting in many parts of Arizona. Grizzly bears, common and black bears; pumas, mountain sheep, jaguars, ocelots, opossums, panthers, wolves, and lynxes are largely distributed over the hill ranges. There are also hares and rabbits and many smaller animals. Wild turkeys have much diminished of late years; but there is a variety of birds, some of them excellent for the spit. The chase, however, is attended with some danger, unless one is very well booted and looks out where he treads, as rattle-snakes abound, and are of exceeding virulence, the black species being especially deadly. There are horned toads, but these are harmless.