We Joined Captain Corliss And The Company At Antelope Station,
And In Two More Days Were At Yuma City.
By this time, the
Southern Pacific Railroad had been built as far as Yuma, and a
bridge thrown across the Colorado at this point.
It seemed an
incongruity. And how burning hot the cars looked, standing there
in the Arizona sun!
After four years in that Territory, and remembering the days,
weeks, and even months spent in travelling on the river, or
marching through the deserts, I could not make the Pullman cars
seem a reality.
We brushed the dust of the Gila Valley from our clothes, I
unearthed a hat from somewhere, and some wraps which had not seen
the light for nearly two years, and prepared to board the train.
I cried out in my mind, the prayer of the woman in one of
Fisher's Ehrenberg stories, to which I used to listen with
unmitigated delight, when I lived there. The story was this:
"Mrs. Blank used to live here in Ehrenberg; she hated the place
just as you do, but she was obliged to stay. Finally, after a
period of two years, she and her sister, who had lived with her,
were able to get away. I crossed over the river with them to
Lower California, on the old rope ferry-boat which they used to
have near Ehrenberg, and as soon as the boat touched the bank,
they jumped ashore, and down they both went upon their knees,
clasped their hands, raised their eyes to Heaven, and Mrs. Blank
said:
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