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.