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.