Hors d'œuvresGâteau de Lebanon (varié).ConsomméEau Naturelle.EntréeGâteau de Lebanon.Plat du jourDitto.LégumesDitto.DessertDitto.WinesVin blanc d'Adam(direct from the distillery).
And oh, what a meal was there, my countrymen! There was enough and to spare. The cooking was excellent, the service irreproachable, and there were no gratuities.
After a leisurely half-hour I stuffed what little cakeI couldn't contain into the tool-box, took one last, lingering draught from the cool crystal stream, and again kicked Lizzie into a rattle.
Once more towards Cincinnati! Two hours only, now, I reminded myself, and all the trees and birds in hearing. Gradually those two hours became shorter as mile after weary mile rattled past. Sure enough, in about the time I had reckoned the pot-holes in the road grew larger and the ruts deeper, a sure sign of approaching civilization. Then a huge signboard appeared, "Cincinnati, the Queen City of the West. Make your home in Cincinnati."
The Cincinnati Speedway was passed on the right, and after a couple of miles or more I struck tram-lines. The reader can well imagine how glad and relieved I felt when I spotted trams and tram-lines, those things which in normal life I rightly detest and abhor. Whereas once upon a time I considered them to be the motorist's greatest enemy, I now smiled upon them with friendly gaze.
By the time I was actually on the outskirts of the town, I was "baked to a frizzle." And such a thirst! For three days I had been amassing a good thirst. Ohio mud is not really a good beverage. It might perhaps "put one over" the "near" beer that I have tasted in various American towns, but that's not to be wondered at. The man who first called it "near" beer wasn't much of a judge of distance! Never could I remember having been so hot, so thirsty, and so fed up, all in one. I pulled up at the first drug store and literally squandered twenty-five cents in an orgy of ice-cream sodas. I took the precaution to retain ten cents, however, "in case anything turned up."
At about half-past fourwe arrived. A wealth of meaning rests in those two words. My friend Steve heard the noise as he sat reading on the verandah of 3,450 Clifton Avenue. "That can't be Shep. That's somebody wheeling a lawn-mower," he said to himself without looking-up, and went on with his book. But when the lawn-mower had overrun itself and turned round and came back and continued indefinitely to lawn-mow outside the same 3,450, he looked up and saw that it was indeed a motor-cycle or, at any rate, the unmistakable remnants of one. When he saw the rider, he thought: "No, that can't be Shep after all; that's the dustman."
But fact will always triumph over fiction. In the same way soap, thank Heaven, will always triumph over dirt. But what a relief to be once again in a comfortable house, that could almost be considered "home," and once more to know the joys of a good hot bath and feel the luxurious embrace of clean clothes again!
I spent in all twelve days in Cincinnati. They were twelve happy days; days of leisure, days of interesting experiences, followed by days of longing to be on the road again.
The first of July, 1919, will live in the mind of every free-born American citizen as the day when Prohibition became law throughout the entire States. Not by design, but by coincidence, was it also the date of my departure from my friends in Cincinnati to explore the "perils" of the West. My sojourn there was brought to a sudden close by the astounding discovery that Lizzie's overhaul was completed. I had a few warm things to observe when I was presented with the repair bill. It amounted to a mere seventy-five dollars, half of which represented the alleged value of the somewhat indifferent labours of a more indifferent mechanic and a small boy. On the various occasions when I had visited the shop, the mechanic was generally conspicuous by his absence, and were it not for the occasional activities of the small boy, who seemed to delight in "salivating" at frequent intervals on every available inch of the floor surrounding Lizzie's remains, I feel inclined to think that I should even now be enjoying myself in Cincinnati. The other half of the bill represented sundry replacements which, to my way of thinking, should have been made free underthe firm's guarantee, which had still three-fourths of its term to expire. After much argument, the proprietor and myself agreed to differ on this point.
The early afternoon witnessed my departure. The kindly attentions of mine hostess had provided me with good things for the journey. Meat sandwiches in boxes; fresh butter in tins; fruit and nuts galore. Little packages were squeezed in here and big ones strapped on there. Odd corners and crevices revealed an unsuspected orange or banana and hard-boiled eggs or biscuits in twos and threes lurked amongst the shirts and socks.
With a light heart I spun down the beautiful, well-paved avenues that set at defiance the rigid, straight-edge avenues of more modern American cities. I hummed over the cobble-stones of the lesser streets and swung past trams and over bridges and was soon speeding along the road to Indianapolis, thinking like a true pessimist that Lizzie didn't feel as well as I had hoped, and that I should be hung up again at a not far-distant date.
In America, in the east, it is the easiest thing in the world to take the wrong road. Moreover it is generally the most difficult thing to find out whether one is on the right road or not. I have no objection to make when roads in towns and villages will run either north and south or east and west, because for town life this arrangement spells efficiency. In the country, however, theraison d'êtreof these chess-board roads is somewhat obscure. When combined with old-time roads that originally followed goat-paths or sheep-tracks, its effect is confusing. But when taken to the extreme, and one finds the main highways connecting large cities abound with sharp right-angle turns at every few miles, sometimesgoing north to make up a little latitude, then continuing west, then returning south to lose the latitude gained, and afterwards continuing west again, the result is ridiculous and sometimes exasperating; very often two, three, four, or more roads run parallel and only a few yards distant, all leading to the same place. Sometimes they lead to different places. Sometimes they lead nowhere at all. Sign-posts are not popular anywhere in the United States. Instead the roads are identified by painting every third or fourth or tenth ornth telegraph pole with different colours. When properly carried out, this principle is a very commendable one, and without it travel would be absolutely impossible. But when followed only imperfectly, or when the colours become faded and obliterated, so that one trail can be easily mistaken for another, the traveller has many troubles and trials ahead.
I had ample moral consolation, therefore, for completely losing my way only ten miles out of Cincinnati, and wasted a full hour in trying to get on the right "pike" without going back.
Incidentally the system of decorating telegraph poles in accordance with the trail they follow has its humorous side. There are, all told, over a hundred different trails or "National Highways" in different parts of the States, and each one is supposed to have its distinctive sign. Thus the "Pike's Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway" is identified by a circle of scarlet above a circle of white, and the "Lincoln Highway" by circles of red, white, and blue. Sometimes, as in the cases of the "Blackhawk Trail" and "Mackinaw Indian Trail," the sign is of a more or less complex nature, including the profile of an Indian's head, for instance. The humour of the situationwill be apparent when a single stretch of road coincides with say four or five separate trails. Each telegraph pole is truly a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, with its inscriptions, circles, squares, profiles, bales of cotton, etc., etc., painted on in various colours from top to bottom!
In large towns and cities where several trails meet, it requires the quintessence of alertness and deduction to find one's way by the telegraph poles, which, save for a few exceptions, represent the only means of identification. Strange, in a country using twenty times the number of cars per head found in any other country in the world, that facilities for using them should be so meagre as at times to be almost prehistoric!
It is strange also that some of the roads that were constructed even in modern times were the achievement of personal enterprise and are even now "boosted" and advertised by their "promotors." An outstanding case is that of the "Pike's Peak Highway" just mentioned, which is one of the three trails that cross the Continent from east to west. This road boasts a President, three Vice-Presidents, and a Secretary-Treasurer! Between them these worthy gentlemen are responsible for the proper maintenance of the road (experience compels a sarcastic smile), and for the furnishing of information to travellers thereon, etc. Where the money comes from I wot not, unless it be from the various motoring clubs in the country. In a booklet, published apparently by them, it is described as "The Appian Way of America." Permit me to quote passages from this remarkable publication:—
"Increased attention is this year being focussed on the 'See America' idea, and motorists planning atrans-continental trip will naturally select the route of greatest scenic and historic interest. That is why the discriminating tourist will travel over the Pike's Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, the improved central route from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. From New York it follows the National Old Trails Road to Indianapolis; from that city to Salt Lake City, it has its ownDistinctive Organisation; and west of Salt Lake City it follows the line of the Lincoln Highway. History places the stamp of approval on this as theLogicaltrans-continental Highway. Etc., etc. (pages of it).... The trip has no dreariness and no monotony.... (More pages)."
"Increased attention is this year being focussed on the 'See America' idea, and motorists planning atrans-continental trip will naturally select the route of greatest scenic and historic interest. That is why the discriminating tourist will travel over the Pike's Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, the improved central route from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. From New York it follows the National Old Trails Road to Indianapolis; from that city to Salt Lake City, it has its ownDistinctive Organisation; and west of Salt Lake City it follows the line of the Lincoln Highway. History places the stamp of approval on this as theLogicaltrans-continental Highway. Etc., etc. (pages of it).... The trip has no dreariness and no monotony.... (More pages)."
Never was such a grossly misleading impression of ease, comfort, and luxury perpetrated upon an unsuspecting Englishman! It was well said that the pen is mightier than the sword. If ever again I find myself so utterly demented as to motor-cycle across the United States before proper roads have been constructed, may Heaven preserve me from "The Appian Way of America"!
The reader may think that I am dwelling unduly on the subject of roads, but I do so at this juncture because it was a subject which now became of increasing magnitude. Practically the last sign of paved road of any kind between this point and the Pacific Coast (some 2,500 miles away) would be encountered at Indianapolis, and from there onwards were universally the execrable "dirt" roads that so seriously threaten not only the comfort but the safety of motor-cycling. I was not even disappointed at the outlook, because I came to America without even expecting any form of trail or route across its entirety to be at my disposal. But I feel the natural resentment of the Englishman when I am led to believe that there is a luxurious "highway" ahead, only tofind an aggravated series of dust-heaps, mud-pools, and cow-paths!
The road, however, to Indianapolis was not of the "Appian Way" variety. It was comparatively good in places, and ran for many miles along the valley of the Miami River, amidst beautiful scenery of ever-changing variety. After a few miles, the Ohio-Indiana boundary was crossed, and here, as many times afterwards, I was struck by the apparently sudden change of landscape, the same as the home tourist can almost always discern by the "feel" of the country whether he is in England or Wales, no matter if he be without his map for reference. I do not mean that either Ohio or Indiana is particularly mountainous. On the other hand, the latter is on the whole somewhat flat, as if in preparation for the weary stretches of monotonous prairie that are to be encountered the more one travels westward until the Rockies are reached.
I made little headway that afternoon, and at 10.30 in the evening I was still some distance from Indianapolis, the capital of the State. I therefore looked around as best I could in the pitch-darkness, with only my lights as a guide, for a likely spot for my night's abode. Water is asine qua nonfor the camping vagrant, and when I came to a large steel bridge I decided that that was the place for me. It evidently spanned a pretty big river, but it was so far below, or seemed so far, I could not see the water. A lengthy reconnoitre from the road led me to the edge of a field of corn whence I could hear the river but could not see it for dense masses of vegetation.
I propped Lizzie up on her stand and found to my dismay that when the engine stopped the lights wentout. Not feeling in the mood for investigating the cause of the trouble, I was satisfied to keep the engine running slowly as long as illumination was necessary in unstrapping my baggage and "making" my bed. Then I set out to find the river and enjoy the luxury of a wash.
Easier said than done! I could find openings in the thick undergrowth where I deemed the river should be, but could find no way of making closer acquaintance with its waters. As I continued my search, the bank suddenly gave way beneath me, and I was plunged up to the waist in the river I had been so diligently seeking!
My exit was more difficult to negotiate than my entrance. The bushes and weeds on the banks were not strong enough to enable me to pull myself out, but came away, roots and all, and left me sinking in the muddy river-bed. I eventually extricated myself, however, and decided to retire unwashed! Pulling off my soaking top-boots was a herculean task, and this done, I hung my wet breeches on a tree to dry in the warm summer night.
I passed a splendid night and awoke with the dawn, only to find my clothes wetter than they were the night before, thanks to a heavy dew. Such conditions, I reflected, were of mere trifling importance in the life of a bona fide tramp, and I was soon humming along once more through the fresh, crisp morning air.
We arrived in Indianapolis at breakfast time and with a hearty appetite. I remember Indianapolis chiefly as a city with long wide streets full of cobble-stones, tram-lines, and traffic policemen. My first duty was to take Lizzie to see the vet. I didn't like the sound of her at all, and she seemed but a rickety shadow of herformer self. I was taking no chances now. As if by instinct we went "right there." The Henderson agent took Lizzie under his protecting wing, and while I settled down to consume a hefty breakfast of cantaloupe, puffed rice, and coffee, he took her for a spin along the few miles of concrete road that I had left behind with such regret.
"Waal, I guess there ain't very much wrong with her, boy," was the verdict, although he did not seem over-exuberant about it.
"How far you goin'?" he added.
"Just to the end of the road," I replied.
"Hm, and a tidy ride too, I'll say so. I've done it, but not on one o' them."
Then, after meditation, he added, "But I think she'll take you there. Give my love to 'Frisco, won't you, boy?"
I promised, paid him a dollar, and left to track down the offices of the local branch of the "3 A." Club, or Automobile Association of America, whom, I was informed, I must see before going any further, to inquire about the roads ahead. Dirt roads, it will be understood, vary with the weather. Hardly ever does the English motorist hear of a road being washed away with the rain, but the idea of its being borne away on the wings of the wind would indeed appear strange to him!
I found the "3 A." Club located at one of the large hotels, all alive with "bell-boys" and commissionaires and elevators. I was greeted by the hotel staff with haughty aloofness. "Put that gink outside," I could imagine the desk clerk saying to the hall-porter. But I was being whisked up the elevator to the umpteenth floor before he had the chance.
At the "3 A." Club office I was greeted most cordially.The gentleman at the desk was a human encyclopædia of roads and places. Beneath the dirt and dust he believed he perceived some person of high rank, a brigadier or something, and my brown tunic and field-boots must have borne out this assumption. However, that may be, he certainly did his best to give me every assistance. But when I told him I was motor-cycling to the Pacific and wanted to know which was the best road to take, his jaw dropped suddenly. There were two alternative routes to Kansas City, the "Pike's Peak" through Springfield and the "National Old Trails Highway" through St. Louis. Which should I take?
"Well, sir, the National Old Trail is impossible just now. The rains have been very heavy and there are several places where you couldn't possibly get through. And as for the other—well, I shall have to think."
Which he did. He hummed and ha'd and stroked his chin and hummed and ha'd again, as if struggling with some momentous problem. He spread out maps in rows before him and followed the route with his finger. Then silence.
After a minute or two of this, in which the merits of "washouts" and hold-ups and detours by the score were being weighed together in his troubled brain, he spoke:
"Yes, sir, I think you can get through"—and, more deliberately—"Ithinkyou can get through. Yes, it's a good road," he added.
I learnt then for the first time one outstanding principle in the road-study of America. I confirmed it on innumerable occasions later. There are two classes of roads and two only. They are good roads and bad roads. Any road,anywhere, in the wholeof the United States of America (and, I presume, her Colonies as well) is a "good" road if you can "get through." The remainder are bad.
I thanked my benefactor and accepted sheaves of maps and guide-books for which he would take no payment. He was indeed the quintessence of obligation. I on my part was the quintessence of gratitude.
"Now for the fun," I chuckled as I kicked Lizzie to a roar and set out for the highway with red- and white-circled telegraph poles.
The first bit of fun was not far ahead. In places the road was passable if one ignored the six-inch layer of loose sand and soil that covered it. The country was flat and uninteresting. Diversion was occasionally encountered in the form of side-slips and here and there an unexpected spill. The quicker I went the easier I got through, as the soil did not cling to the wheels so much and hinder steering. At thirty it was almost impossible to maintain balance. At thirty-five it was tolerable, and at forty it was comparatively simple.
Now and then I would pass a kind of harrow the width of over half the road and drawn along by a team of horses. The function of this was to break up the big lumps of solid mud formed by the recent rains. After this would follow a similar team of horses dragging a "grader"—a kind of snow-plough arrangement which scraped the surface flat and shovelled the surplus sand and mud-lumps into the side. In these districts the farmers are held by law individually responsible for the condition of the roads their farms adjoin, and the process of grading is expected to be carried out within three or four days after the rain. When the farmers are busy with their crops this doesn't get done, and when they aren't, it sometimes does, according, I think, to whether the farmer is a sheriff or a justice of the peace and hasto set an example to others. Fortunately all farmers are motorists as well; they have to be able to get about, so when they wish to travel, they grade the roads for their own use if for no more altruistic object.
Once I was passing one of these road-ploughs drawn by a team of three horses abreast, which took up most of the road and showed not the slightest intention of drawing in to the side. In endeavouring to pass it, I struck at too small an angle the huge ridge of solid mud-lumps that it had formed. I was going fast, of course. The handlebar was wrenched out of my hands and I was thrown with great force over it and on to the bank at the side. Lizzie herself lay roaring on her side in the dirt. The horses took fright and galloped off. The only damage done showed itself in some nasty cuts and scratches, some small areas of skin missing from different places, and a few bent levers and controls. From past experience I had learnt that in all such cases the clips and brackets and sharp corners of Lizzie's profilealwaysseemed to be in the path of my flight over her handlebars.
A handkerchief bound tightly round the cuts, a few adjustments made, and on we go with smiling faces, only to overtake the wretched thing again!
After twenty or thirty miles of this, we came to mud in earnest—mud measured not by the inch in depth, but by the yard. Never was it soft and squishy and respectable, but always baked rock-hard into ugly contorted shapes that simply defied progress on two wheels alone. The diabolical effect had been heightened by the passing of numerous cars through the roads when the surface was still plastic, and great ruts and cracks and ridges were thrown up at every point between theroad-boundaries, each one representing an eternal struggle to "get through." When the fierce sun came out and poured down for days unceasing upon such ugliness as this, the hideous surface was as if petrified by its glare, and the efforts of a "grader" would be futile to alter in the slightest degree its abominable condition.
Riding was out of the question. It was haulage work that had to be done, and many times when I got into a huge solidified "crevasse," I had to leave the machine standing in it on the tubes of its cradle-frame and proceed ahead to chip the edges down until the wheels would reach to the bottom again.
Anyone who has stood on the "Glacier des Bossons," looked upwards towards the summit of Mont Blanc, and seen the contorted, fantastic shapes that the ice assumes as it swells over the ridges in its path, can perhaps imagine the same effect on a smaller scale applied to the dirt roads of Indiana.
Fortunately there were stretches of road, generally when there was a slight gradient, where the surface was well-drained, hard, and flat, and going was good. But invariably at the foot of every slope, or at the dip between two hills, there was a stretch of excruciating "agony" that would reduce the most defiant motor-cyclist to submission.
Thus it was for eighty or ninety miles. The truth began to dawn on me that a fellow has to be a "tough guy" to motor in these parts. Sometimes I would stop and rest awhile to let an occasional car get by. It was funny to see how they all went! The big heavy touring car would roll along as if to devour all that came its way. It would meet a nasty patch and with broken dignity would heave and sigh from side to side as itslowly crawled on bottom gear over the ridges and furrows; and then it would rear proudly into the air as it surmounted some huge lump of solid mud and suddenly flop down with a dull thud on the bottom of the springs as it plunged into the hollow beyond. One could hear every joint groan under the strain and could sometimes see the bottom of the engine scrape ridges in the chunks of earth and watch the little bits knocked off an unfriendly obstruction as the back axle dragged its weary way along.
And then perchance would come some cheeky Ford, the essence of impudence as opposed to the dignity of its wealthier brethren. With a hop, skip, and a jump, it would scramble over the furrows, swinging gaily from side to side, wagging its tail in the air and rattling in every sinew as only a Ford knows how! But the "Flivvers" got through easier than any.
The worst patch I struck was near the small town of Hume. I have never seen in the space of 200 yards a more apt imitation of a volcanic lava-bed. The thick mud of two days before had been churned up into the most fantastic shapes that ever a main highway has taken. Every square inch of the ninety-foot-wide road bore signs of the passage of some vehicle or other. Some of the ruts were so deep that the machine rested on the engine and the frame and not on the wheels at all. Pushing it anywhere but in one of the best ruts was impossible. When the rut got too deep, I had to lift up the back of the machine bodily and wheel it foot by foot, while the rut took the front wheel whither it listed. Here and there were signs where car-drivers, in similar predicaments, but a day or two before, when the mud was not yet baked quite hard, had shovelledaway large quantities of the road to allow the engine and chassis to clear. Half-way through was a large hole, deep and broad enough to allow a small car to be hidden therein from view. In this hole the mud was still soft and plastic. A good Samaritan of the road had procured a piece of old corrugated iron from somewhere and propped it against two poles to warn any others who might follow of its presence.
Lifting four-cwt. Lizzie across this whole stretch took three-quarters of an hour all told, and at the end I was faint with exhaustion. The sun was never hotter and I never perspired more, not even in the middle of the Mohave Desert in California, where the thermometer rises up to 140 degrees or more! I begged a glass of milk from a farmhouse a mile farther on, and thanked God that He made cows and that I was still alive to appreciate them!
And thus we toiled and thus we spun for many miles until late in the afternoon, when I came to parts where the sun had not yet had time to do its work. Every inch of the road was thick, black, slimy mud; mud that stinks with a smell peculiar to itself alone; mud that clings to the tyres and wedges in the forks and fouls the chains and blocks the wheels; mud indeed that sticketh closer than a brother. I stopped at a ramshackle little village of a few dozen shops and houses, all made of wood, and boasting the name of "Murdock," to partake of afternoon tea. Outside an old rickety "store" (this term includes any conceivable kind of retail shop in America), I saw a notice: "Henry T. Hodges, Justice of the Peace; Dry Goods Store; General Merchandise; Post Office; Real Estate; Refreshments."
An awkward stretch of road in Indiana.An awkward stretch of road in Indiana.
An awkward stretch of road in Indiana.
Motorcycle under a tree.The Midnight Couch.
The Midnight Couch.
Henry T. Hodges beamed on me benignly from behind a pile of preserved fruit tins as I entered his gloomy establishment.
"See here, dad, I want a good meal," I said; "money's no object. Get me?"
"Sure; an' have ye come far, brother?"
"I should reckon about a thousand miles to-day. Dandy roads you've got in these parts, dad."
"Aye, but you'd 'a seen 'em when we 'ad the rains, brother; they wuz so mighty slick the hottymobiles sunk right down in 'em and 'ad to be dug out wi' a shovel and dragged along wi' a team of four 'osses."
"Why, I shouldn't have thought there were four horses in Murdock," I replied.
"Aye, an' I know there is, brother, 'cause they're my 'osses."
"Um! Guess you make a pretty good living out of them, don't you, dad?"
"You've said it, brother. Ten dollars a time is my charge, and if a chap don't pay I jest leave 'im there till 'e does!"
"Well, what about this meal, dad? I'm mighty hungry—and, say, who's the road commissioner about here?"
He essayed no answer, but disappeared hurriedly to boil the tea. I had no doubt now who the road commissioner was!
After leaving the "Store" of Henry T. Hodges, J.P., I did another twenty miles or so until dark, and sought out a comfortable secluded spot near the road, but far enough from it to avoid the smell of it, and settled down for the night. Mosquitoes were the only source of worry now. Otherwise this roadside sleeping was getting quite a commonplace event.
Up at dawn in the morning! On the road once again; labouring, pushing, hauling, heaving, lifting, cleaning off the mud, speeding a mile or two and then more labouring and more pushing.
At breakfast-time I reached Decatur, a flourishing town of 20,000 or so inhabitants, and had breakfast at a "get-fed-quick" eat-house where you sit on a stool in front of the counter and the man at the range behind fries you a mutton steak, bakes the "waffles," or poaches the eggs as per your desire.
Then on again towards Springfield, the capital of Illinois State. The mud changes to sand and the sand to dust. More spills, more cuts, more bruises. The country as flat and uninteresting as they make it. More right-angle bends, more losing of the way and more frizzling in the sun. Two villages are passed in forty miles. One has a population of 417 and the other 59.
At 11 a.m. we draw into Springfield, hot, tired, dusty, and sore. Springfield is a mass of roads, trams, telegraph poles, and people. I leave Lizzie leaning against the kerb and go for an ice-cream soda; when I return, Lizzie is no longer visible. Instead there is a large crowd. They are all examining something. Those on the outside elbow their way to the middle. Those in the middle try to keep them out. The passers-by wonder what it's all about and stop to see. They in turn try to make their way to the middle. Many are disappointed and pass on. The traffic cop, seeing the crowd, strolls over to see what's wrong.
When he had moved the crowd away, I got astride Lizzie's saddle and rode away, amid murmurs of astonishment.
"Come quite a ways, I reckon."
"That's the kind of bird to go travelling on."
"Looks as though he's seen some mud somewhere."
"Look, Bill, he's got 'igh boots on like they have in the movies!"
"Ah, that's what 'e is, 'e's a dolgarn movie actor," etc., etc.
All the trails in America seem to go through Springfield, Ill. Consequently the telegraph poles and tram poles were a mass of hieroglyphics. It took a few minutes to get into Springfield. But it took the best part of two hours to get out of it satisfactorily. Once I thought I was well away, but found that for ten miles I had followed a trail that had white stripes on a red background instead of red stripes on a white background, or something of the kind.
Jacksonville was the next town, some forty miles away. There are six smaller towns on the way. I don't remember passing six, but my map vouches for this number. Their respective populations, taken from the said map, are as follows:—Riddle Hill, 25; Berlin, 251; New Berlin, 690; Alexander, 200; Orleans, 38; and Arnold, 15. So America is not full up yet. But fancy showing a village of fifteen inhabitants on the map! If it were in Arizona instead of Illinois they would have called it Arnold "City." Here are some more names, taken at random from the map, to show the endless variety that the American cartographer has drawn upon:—"Daisy," "Whitehall," "Quiver," "Cuba," "Golden," "Siloam," "Time," "Pearl," "Summum," "Birmingham" (population 76), "Illinois City" (population 80), "Bible Grove" (population 10), "Enterprise" (population 7).
After Jacksonville the road seemed to change its mind.It refused to be a road any longer. It turned instead into a sea-beach and dodged in and out, here and there, to evade the approaching traveller. Everywhere was to be seen white sand. It lay feet deep on the trail, making progress almost impossible. It covered all the vegetation at the roadside, and it filled the air as well. Here for the first time I encountered the type of road that can disappear with the vagaries of the wind. It was easy to imagine that in æons of time this self-same road would help to form some great geological strata deposited in the Gulf of Mexico or elsewhere. The country became hilly and thickly wooded, and sometimes the trail would narrow down to just a few feet in width and then just as quickly open out to fifty or sixty. The trees grew thicker, the sand grew thinner, the trail dodged around boulders and trees, shot up little sandy slopes, and then, all of a sudden, without any warning whatever, stopped at the bank of a great wide silent river.
It was the Illinois River, a tributary of the great Mississippi, which itself was only fifty miles away. About a couple of hundred yards wide, it was navigated by a ferry-boat of unknown antiquity pulled across the river by a cable wound round a drum. Every man, woman, and child, and every vehicle that crosses America by the Pike's Peak Highway, swells the funds of the man who owns that ferry-boat.
"Which is the road now?" I asked him when we eventually reached the other side. I could see no signs of any continuation of the trail. He had better eyes than I, however.
"Go straight ahead; you can't miss it."
There was certainly visible a little pathway thatscrambled up the bank and then wound in and out among the trees, and as I could see nothing else, I followed it. Sure enough it led to "Valley City" (population 52), and thence onwards, through "New Salem" and "Barry" towards "Hannibal" on the Mississippi River.
The Mississippi! Long had I conjured up visions of this mighty river of over 4,000 miles total length that cuts through the United States from north to south, and drains nearly 1-1/2 million square miles of land! I had imagined its vast breadth and followed in my fancy the great, silent, moving river as it flowed from west to east and north to south through ever-changing scenery and ever-widening banks. And here I was within a few miles of it! The thought was almost absurd.
Just when the sun was about to set the road made one more swerve to the left. The trees and the surrounding country fell away as if by magic, and there was nothing beyond, save a massive bridge of steel. Beneath and from horizon to horizon flowed the majestic river.
The other end of the bridge was probably some 3,000 feet away in the town of Hannibal and the State of Missouri. Hannibal bristles with statues, tablets, posters, placards, and picture-postcards. They all have the same theme for a subject—"Mark Twain." The Hanniballians, if such they are called, are just as bad. I believe it is not possible for a stranger to be in Hannibal for five minutes without being told that Mark Twain was born there. If the "clerk" at the refreshment bar doesn't tell you, the man at the post office does. If the young "fellar" who pumps a couple of gallons of "gas" into your tank forgets to tell you, the old girlat the fruit-shop doesn't. They must have a secret code in Hannibal whereby they arrange these things. And I will guarantee there aren't two out of every dozen picture-postcards on sale in Hannibal that don't show Mark Twain's birthplace or his cave or his statue or his ass or his ox or something that he either did or did not "immortalize."
Seeking a quiet little spot by the river where I could spend the night and fulfil one of my long-cherished hopes—to bathe in the River Mississippi, I turned down a little road that ran along the bank and reconnoitred the country. To my dismay a railway ran between the road and the river, almost at the very water's edge. Nothing daunted, and hoping that it would sooner or later swerve away and leave me in peace with my river, I continued for miles, long after it was dark, but with no success. The road itself was on a ledge high above the railway, and the railway was on a ledge built some six or eight feet above the river. Eventually I left Lizzie at the roadside, camouflaged her with leaves and branches, and scrambled down with my bags over the ledge on to the bank below. I found a comfortable little spot about ten feet from the rails and laid my bed. And oh, what a glorious bathe I had in the river!
It was the eve of July 4th, the American "Day of Independence." Sounds of revellers from far away were wafted over the calm, silent waters. Now and then would be heard the faint swish of a canoe as it glided past in the darkness of the night, and soft music crept up the river from time to time, now clear, now faint, as if from its dark and mystic depths.
I tucked myself under the blanket feeling like a good Christian that night, with never a worry in the world—aworld that was good and kind and comfortable always.
Nevertheless I should have liked to know when a train would be coming past to disturb my slumbers.
Just as I was dozing over, I heard footsteps along the rails. They came closer and closer, but I could see nothing. The night was pitch-dark. As the footsteps came opposite to me, I made out the form of a man against the starlit sky. He did not see me.
"Say, bo, can you tell me how many trains pass here to-night?" I asked.
He jumped as if struck in the back.
"Only a couple, brother," he replied to where the air had spoken, "one of them in about half an hour and the other about one in the morning;—but they won't worry you," he added.
Sure enough in half an hour's time I heard the distant rumble of a train. I began to wonder if I had not rolled any closer to the rails than when I lay down. The earth shook and a red glare appeared in the distance, and with a mighty roar the huge train came thundering through an opening in the trees. Although I knew I was at a safe distance, the feeling of impending annihilation swooped suddenly down upon me. "Don't be an ass," said I, "what's the use of getting the wind up?" And the next second it seemed that the rushing torrent of steel and fire was but an inch from my head. Clatter bang-thump, clatter-bang-thump, for twenty long seconds, and the intruder was gone. In another minute not a sound broke the silence of the midsummer night.
Thinking what an excellent test of self-control it would be to pitch my bed between the rails, but disinclined to do so on account of the possibility of a cow-catcherbeing in front of the trains, I rolled over into heavy slumber.
In half an hour I was awake again and the same process was repeated. I deemed then that I should be left in peace for the night. But my friend had not reckoned on the freight trains. Only the passenger trains were of account to him!
Regularly every half-hour they thundered past. At dawn I had counted thirteen in all. I resolved not to sleep on a railway embankment again, even though it be in company with the Mississippi.
Hannibal is a nice, clean, respectable place; were I an American tourist I would call it a "cute little city."
I found an eating-house with a tempting smell around it, and ordered a hearty breakfast. After polishing off this meal, I mounted Lizzie and started off once more.
We were now in Missouri, the State of the small farmer. Not that the farms are so very small, but they are not on so large a scale as further on in the west, where the hundred-square-mile ranch is the order of the day.
Again the scenery experiences a quick change; the country becomes hilly and rough; one sees maize growing almost everywhere and very often pigs (or hogs as they are termed in the States) turned out to pasture. Nevertheless there is much uncleared and uncultivated land to be seen; the towns and villages are clean, modern, and well laid out, and all give an air of prosperity and plenty. Every farmer has his car, and it is generally a Ford; youngsters of twelve and fourteen can be seen driving them, and generally with as much skill as their parents, if not more.
But for all its hills and vales and the luxuriance of its natural beauty, Missouri has one great drawback. There is a very big fly in the Missouri ointment—rain. And when it rains in Missouri, it rains properly, not in tantalizing little showers as it does in England. It isas though the whole sky had burst its water-mains. It falls not in inches but feet; not for hours but for days. Then suddenly the sun breaks out and scorches everything with renewed vigour. If a car is out far from home when the rain comes, it generally has to "stay put." The rain sinks into the road and so does the car. Every car carries a set of chains for its wheels, but although they improve matters slightly, they are often futile in ploughing through the thick slime. Then come the teams of horses at five and ten and twenty dollars a time to drag the unfortunate automobile to some garage where it "lays up" until the rain has gone and the sun has dried the roads sufficiently for further progress.
Sometimes enterprising individuals do not wait for rain to bring in the shekels. I have often heard of perfectly authentic cases of a farmer deliberately flooding likely patches of the road and then waiting patiently with his horses to drag out some unfortunate victim. This seems absurd, but care is always taken to select a spot where it cannot be definitely proved that natural conditions are not entirely responsible for the result!
In the early afternoon, after a hard ride from Hannibal, punctuated at every village with a stop for the consumption of ice-cream, I reached a small town called "Bucklin." No sooner was I there than a huge black cloud appeared suddenly in the sky and a terrific windstorm rose which blew everything that was not fixed to something in all directions. For half an hour it raged. The air was thick with dust, leaves and bits of paper. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the wind subsided, and rain commenced in torrents. So fast did it fall and so heavy were the drops that the surface of the road was beaten into a froth which hovered all the time a few inches abovethe road itself. Even to walk across it was a test of skill; so slimy was the mud that one's feet slid aimlessly about in any direction but the one desired. For this reason concrete pathways are invariably provided so that pedestrians can move with comparative ease and can leave their homes and visit anyone anywhere in the town without actually touching the mud at all. These concrete pathways naturally have to cross the road in places, and when the road surrounding them is washed away, as very often happens, the result to a passing vehicle can be imagined.
Further progress being out of the question that day, I hied me to the only hotel in the place and prepared to while away the days that were to follow in writing letters, studying an obsolete almanac, and eating bad food.
It rained in a continual deluge all that day, all night and all next morning. At midday it stopped with a bump, the sun came out with another, and the birds began to sing again. At three I ventured forth with Lizzie. I had not gone a dozen yards when the back wheel slipped sideways round to the front and left me reposing in the half-baked mud. Back again for another hour's wait while the broiling sun did its work. Next time I got as far as the outskirts of the town before I decided to turn back. After another hour we started out to do or die, come what might. During the remainder of the day until dark we covered ten miles, going hard all the time. When I was not extricating myself from a spicy bit of quagmire, I was poking semi-hard mud out of the wheels and mudguards.
On one occasion I came to a sudden dip in the road, followed by an equally sudden rise. As usual there was an uninviting "slough of despond" in the hollow.After trying two or three different ruts in an effort to "get through," giving up each one in turn as hopeless, and pushing back again to where still another rut branched off from the one I was in, I eventually worked my way through. The struggle up the slope on the other side was a formidable one and was being slowly accomplished by a combination of bottom-gear driving, pushing, lifting, and "paddling." Just before the summit was reached I was thrown by a steep furrow into the ditch at the roadside, breathless, exhausted, and extremely bad-tempered.
As I was extracting myself, a young man in shirt-sleeves strolled leisurely over, hands in pockets, from a stationary car a little further on. When I had safely extricated my right leg from under the machine and hauled Lizzie on to her wheels again, the stranger spoke.
"Say, fella, does that front cylinder get hot? I've heard say that's the weak point about them four-cylinder motorsickles."
Here follows a flow of language from self entirely unprintable. The stranger opens his eyes, whistles softly, then adds, as if to turn the subject:
"Where you from?"
He remained with his hands in his pockets staring at my diminishing form. He was still there when I looked over my shoulder half a mile further on. He is probably there now!
As time went on, black clouds appeared in the sky; the sun went in; the wind rose, and a repetition of the events of the day before commenced just as I arrived in the small town of "Wheeling." The only thing to do was to eat ices until the climatic conditions adjusted themselves. This took the best part of two hours. Once again I sallied forth with Lizzie. Thistime in the short space of five yards I reposed gently but thoroughly in the Missouri mud, much to the amusement of the population, who had all turned out to witness my departure. Again I tried and again I fell. The whole machine seemed to act as though it were made of jelly. I gave it up on the third attempt.
"Try the railway," jeered the village comedian, pointing to a level-crossing in the distance. This amused the onlookers "considerable." For myself, I discerned a glimmer of wisdom in the suggestion.
"Look here, you guys," I retorted, "what about giving me a hand to push this as far as the depot" (I never made the fatal mistake of referring to it as a "station") "instead of looking on and grinning like a lot of schoolboys?"
It had its effect. Three or four volunteered at once. We all pushed; we slithered to right and left; we slipped over each other and ourselves. But we got there.
Riding on the sleepers was hardly humorous, but it was better than the road. They were not filled in and were very irregular. Consequently progress was slow and a trifle disjointed. The "depot" was not far away. The "line-boss" looked at me curiously, as though I were a strange offshoot from some wayward train.
"Many trains coming along this way?" I queried, wishing to know what I should have to meet, as there was only a single track, double tracks being seldom, if ever, laid in the States, and if one was unprepared it might prove embarrassing to meet a train coming in the opposite direction just in the middle of a tunnel or a bridge. American railway bridges are remarkable for their narrowness. Very often the sleepers themselves project into space, and never is there any track beyond them.
"You said it, brother," he replied, "dozens of 'em." "And what's more, there's a couple of long tunnels just a mile away—look, you can see the beginning—and beyond them there's a bridge pretty nigh half a mile long—and trains is mighty funny things to play hide and seek with, y' know!"
I was of that opinion myself. As I looked, I saw a train emerge from the tunnel ahead. I reflected that I should have been just about there by now if I hadn't stopped. I went back to Wheeling.
The next day I covered twenty miles in four hours and found myself back in Wheeling again, but this time by another road. Nothing daunted, I said nothing, clenched my teeth, and polished off another twenty until dark.
The day after I did better. The nett progress at the end of the day's work was twenty-five miles instead of twenty. I arrived at the conclusion that Missouri had one great advantage that I had hitherto overlooked. It was an excellent place to get out of!
On the next day I covered five miles in six hours, and although only forty miles or so from Kansas City, which marks the commencement of the historic Santa Fé Trail leading to the Pacific Coast, I made a solemn vow that I would "ship" everything there by train at the next town. The next town happened to be "Excelsior Springs," twenty miles further on. The road improved considerably, and the comforting thought of civilization at so short a distance urged me on and I broke that solemn vow. I rode into Kansas City late that afternoon, a mass of bruises from head to foot, just as the speedometer showed 1,919 miles from New York. I ferreted out the Henderson agent and left Lizzie in his tender keeping.
It took three days for me to find that the Kansas City I was in was not the Kansas City I thought I was in. I took it for granted that Kansas City would be in Kansas State. But it was not.MyKansas City was in Missouri, but after searching diligently at the post office for mail that wasn't there, I found there was another Kansas City on the other bank of the river. All good citizens of Kansas City, Mo., turn up their noses at the mention of Kansas City, Kan.,—"no connection with the firm opposite" sort of thing.
Of the two, Kansas City, Mo., is by far the more commendable town. It hustles and bustles just as every good American city should do. It is exactly "one hundred per cent American." The advertisements in the papers said so. I believe it, because any city that boasts of being four times larger than it really is must be 100 per cent. American! But I must give Kansas City its due. It represents the essence of keenness and enterprise in business and farming circles. It has that "breezy" air that is so healthy in city life, compared with the dull, gloomy inertness so characteristic of most manufacturing towns, especially here in England. Kansas City has some excellent streets and some magnificent buildings, and has undoubtedly grown at a remarkable rate during the last ten years. Being the last city of really largedimensions that one meets until the Pacific Coast is reached, it is the connecting link between the East and the Far West. Grain and farm produce from the vast States of the West flow unceasingly through its warehouses and stockyards. A network of railways concentrates to a focus at Kansas City, railways bringing in and taking out millions of tons of produce annually.
The next day, when I visited the motor-cycle agency, Lizzie was standing disconsolately where I had left her the day before. I begged, entreated, exhorted, and threatened that she be given immediate attention. I lied abominably to the manager that I was putting up a record between the coasts and every minute was important.
How could I expect to beat all existing records if they kept my machine in dock for a week? I was promised that it would be started on "right now." That term "right now" has a significance unknown to Europeans. It is subtle and evasive, intangible and incomprehensible. It conveys a sense of such utter obligation on the part of the speaker that one has not the heart to query its exact purport. As far as I can ascertain, or at any rate as far as I have experienced its application, it is more similar to the French "tout de suite" than any other expression I can identify, in that it might imply anything between the immediate present and the indefinite future.
Lizzie required several replacements, including a new set of bearings, a cylinder and two gudgeon pins, these latter being broken in half at the middle. The agent told me that they always were liable to break. If they were put in upside-down, as he always fitted them, so that the oil hole was at the bottom instead of the top, they would not break at all. Further he hinted that myparticular machine was turned out while a good fat strike was in progress at the factory.
"Well, you can stick it together so that it will take me to the coast all right?" I queried anxiously.
"Well, yes, I guess I can," was his studied reply.
"Go right ahead then, boss, but do it quick! I'm running short of money and can't afford to stay in your metropolis right here for the benefit of my health."
Being destined then to remain in Kansas City for four or five days more, I found myself with ample leisure in which to collect my thoughts and prepare for the journey through the "wild west" ahead.
One result of my leisure was that I paid a visit to the editor of theKansas City Star. This is one of the most progressive newspapers in the United States, and circulates everywhere in the West. The extent of its circulation and the results of its progressiveness I was, however, still to learn.
The editor was found as usual at his desk in the middle of a large room, surrounded by his myrmidons in typical American style. He greeted me with extreme cordiality. "No need to tell you I'm English, I suppose?" I said.
"See that door over there?" (pointing to the one in the far distance through which I had entered). "Well, I spotted you were an Englishman the minute you came in there."
I explained with complete humiliation that I was travelling across the United States of America on a motor-cycle and wondered whether his readers would be interested in the point of view of such a despicable object as an English motor-cyclist on this great and wonderful country. "Not for the love of the thing, you know," I added, "Idon't see why I shouldn't earn a dollar or two on the wayside."
He pointed to a typewriter standing idle at a desk. "Let's have the story right now, and give us something about roads. There's a big movement just started to get good roads, so you can just hand out the straight dope to everybody on the subject. Get me? Something good and snappy."
I explained that while no one was more eminently capable of writing about American roads than myself, I had never graduated as a typist in the course of my business career. I should, therefore, have to retire and push the modest pen.
"What! a business man who can't use a typewriter? I didn't know there was such a thing," was his rejoinder.
I let them have it about roads. I referred also to their commendable system of arresting road-hogs. This with a few pro-American embellishments such as "wonderful country," "indescribable beauty," "inexhaustible wealth," etc. etc., rounded off the theme.
My friend the editor not only rewarded me at the noble rate of a dime a line (5d.), thus assuring the hotel expenses for my stay in the city, but also gave me about an hour of his valuable time in talking about almost everything under the sun—mainly American. It is rather surprising to an Englishman to find that practically any worthy American business man, no matter how busy he may be or how valuable the time lost thereby, will entertain a visitor for an incredible length of time. If the visitor happens to be an Englishman, he is all the more pleased to do so because then he can talk uninterruptedly about America and what a wonderful country it is. All the noted men of Europe, I learned, had been in the office and satin that same chair. The editor told me so. Lord Northcliffe spent all his leisure hours there while in the States. So also did many other notorieties, some unknown to me. Leastways, so the editor told me. I took his money and bade him farewell.
On the fifth day after my arrival in Kansas City all was in readiness for my departure. There was another big bill to meet for Lizzie's overhaul, but I had the satisfaction of knowing that the bearings had all been replaced, as well as a few cylinders and pistons and things, and that there was just a chance of getting to the coast before something else went wrong. Once again I wrote polite letters to the factory at Chicago, paid many dozen "green backs" over the counter, and started off once more, this time with only thirty-five dollars in pocket. Once again fate and the post office had been unkind. Not a suggestion of anything was there at either of the post offices at any of my calls thereon. Amid vague wonderings and oft repeated doubts I promised myself a big cheque at Santa Fé, next stop. I was just beginning to know the ins and outs of the postal service.
The Santa Fé Trail is the oldest and most interesting highway in America. Rather should it be said that the pioneers over what later became known as the Santa Fé Trail were the first to leave permanent marks on routes that have since become "highways" between the Central-Western and the Far-Western States. In the days of the ox team and prairie-schooner, the plains and mountains were crossed by trails, usually along the lines of least resistance, keeping as close as possible to bases of suppliesand water. Travel over the Santa Fé Trail began about 1822, starting from Little Rock, Arkansas (pronounced Arkansaw), and following the Arkansas River west. A few years later, this trail was superseded by a more permanent one going west from Kansas City (then called Westport) to "Great Bend," a base situated, as its name implies, on a great bend of the Arkansas River, and thence to Santa Fé by a choice of two routes. An important trade with the Spanish population of the south-west was early developed, reaching its zenith in the '60s. This route, the one which I followed, has now been marked a considerable part of the way by stone monuments erected by the "Daughters of the American Revolution" and constituted the chief inroad from the East to the Far West. Santa Fé itself, next to St. Augustine, Florida, is the most ancient city in America, having been founded in 1605 by Spanish settlers on the site of a "pueblo" or Indian village of far-distant origin. Naturally, therefore, it was the centre of trade for years numbered by hundreds, and traders from afar brought their goods and supplies in boats up the rivers as far as navigable and then in teams across the dreary plains and over the steep Rockies to this one destination.
Later, in the gold-rush to California in 1849, emigrants reached San Francisco, the "Golden Gate," via this same Santa Fé Trail, undergoing indescribable hardships on the way, and at all times subjected to frequent onslaughts by the hostile Indians.
The first railroads were built across the plains alongside the old trails. The first automobile trips (and I take off my hat to them!) naturally followed the railroads, from the necessity of keeping near to supplies. But the motor-car of to-day frequently makes either short cuts or detours—leadingperhaps 100 or 200 miles away from the railroad—in order to visit sections offering unusual attractions, or places of historical interest, even when located in desert regions.
Thus, with Kansas City behind me, the journey begins to be really interesting from an historic, if not from a scenic point of view. The hand of modern civilization at last is seen to relax its grasp. Now, instead of the prosaic, the conventional and the luxurious, are we to find the unique, the heterodox and the primitive. After the tainted breath of huge cities and the seething, crushing, maddening turmoil of wealth and modernism are to follow the pure unbounded atmosphere of the giant plains, the mystic call of the great mountains, the vastness, the fearfulness and the rapture of the scorching deserts. Which shall it be for me?
Before me lie 500 miles of perfectly flat and uninteresting country before I leave the State of Kansas and enter Colorado. Then follow another 200 equally flat, equally drear, to be crossed before the Rockies loom into sight. Seven hundred miles of endless weary prairie, stretching always, everywhere, as far as the eye can see, with never a hill nor a dale nor hardly a tree in sight!—Nothing but boundless, illimitable corn, wheat and prairie.
That night, after an afternoon's run of 120 miles, I rested in a cornfield. The road had ended abruptly. An old bridge had been demolished and a new one was about to be erected. A heap of debris in the middle attracted my attention, and I was fortunate. Here the road ended; there was a little chasm some thirty feet across; beyond was the road again. Nothing for it but to turn back. Turning back is always objectionable. I deemed that it would be less so in the morning. That is why I wrappedmyself in my mosquito net behind a hedge in a cornfield and offered up thanksgiving.
The mosquito net—I have not mentioned it before! I purchased three yards of it in a little store back in Missouri while waiting for the road to dry up. I also bought a cap. Having worn no headgear since leaving New York, I soon discarded the cap and later gave it away to a little urchin who looked as though he needed one more than I. But the mosquito net remained for a longer spell. Nightly was it unfolded and wrapped around my unworthy self, and daily was it folded carefully up again and packed into the bag once more.
I shall never forget that mosquito net. It was white. Leastways it was when I bought it. I tried countless ways of enveloping myself in its folds, but never with any great measure of success. Thetout ensemblewhen struggles had subsided, with self in pyjamas surrounded by wrappings of white chiffon on a black background (my waterproof groundsheet) must have presented an extraordinary spectacle to the poor birds above. No doubt they mistook me for some miscreant angel served with an ejectment order without notice from the star-lit sky! At first all went well. I breathed the calm midnight air unmolested. "It can't be true," I told myself, "there is a catch in it somewhere." There was. I discovered that whereas it was comparatively difficult for a mosquito to get inside the net, once he did get inside it was an utter impossibility to get him out again. One mosquito inside a mosquito net is worth much more than two outside. He is worth at least forty!
Then I tried various stunts because, when I did get properly wrapped up, I invariably rolled out of it in my sleep. I rigged up poles and sticks and cut little pegsfrom twigs to hold the net down like a tent. I had it stitched up the sides like a bag and wriggled into it nightly, only to find it wrapped around my feet in the morning and my face and arms a mass of bites. Finally, in the heart of the Rockies I think it was, I gave it up as a bad job and resorted to the Citronella method once again. For aught I know that old mosquito-net is still hanging to the fence of a cow-ranch at the foot of Pike's Peak, Colo.!
Up at dawn in the morning and away. I found another road some three miles back and continued on my way westward rejoicing. Sixty miles were covered before breakfast. The towns and villages became very few and far between, and Council Grove, where I enjoyed my morning repast, was practically the first town to be encountered. I had set my mind on a good day's run and prayed for good roads. On my map, which was said to be the only road-map of the United States published, and was hopelessly inaccurate and inadequate, there was a huge river, the Arkansas, a couple of hundred miles ahead. I judged it to be about half a mile wide. Verily, thought I, the Arkansas River shall be my resting place to-night, and Great Bend my destination.
After a long day's ride I toiled into Great Bend at sunset. The journey had been monotonous and the road fatiguing. I longed to stretch my weary bones on the banks of yon mighty river and bathe in its refreshing waters. While I was devouring my evening meal, on a little high stool in the one and only café of Great Bend, I was consoling myself with this prospect.
Outside, a little group of men were sitting on the pavement eyeing Lizzie propped up against the kerb. It is the general thing to sit on pavements in the Far West.They are much higher than those we are accustomed to and afford adequate and comfortable accommodation for the weary population. Often one can see a row of men sitting on the kerb for the whole length of a "block" when the sun is in such a direction that the sitters are sheltered by the buildings behind them. I made a mental note: "Another good idea for importation to England." I pictured tired Londoners sitting down in rows on the pavements of the Strand or clustered leisurely around Piccadilly Circus chewing "shag"!
My pockets bulged with bottles of "Buckeye," an imitation root beer sold extensively in the States (since prohibition) and alleged to have a "kick" in it. A suspicious swelling elsewhere on my person indicated a tin of pineapple chunks (a delight of my youth).
"Goin' far?" inquired one of my scrutineers.
"Down to the river to-night. This the right road?"
"Right slick in front of your nose half a mile away."
I came to a long wooden bridge arrangement, but could find no river. After going two or three miles and finding no Arkansas, I returned to Great Bend to try another road. This time I inquired at the café.
"Straight ahead, you can't miss the bridge."
"Oh, is there a river there? I didn't see one."
Back again to the bridge, but no signs of a river. Instead there was a great stretch of white sand like a sea-beach, but with little trees and shrubs and tufts of grass dotted here and there.
"Well, this is no Arkansas River," said I to myself, "but I'm through. This sand looks pretty comfortable, so here goes."
In amongst the sand dunes I made my bed and never did traveller camp in more delightful surroundings or restin more peaceful conditions. The stars shone out with unusual brilliancy in the heavens, and the moon rose at the setting of the sun, enveloping all in a magic sheen of silver. A soft cool breeze played gently over the plain and little birds of unknown song and uncounted variety slowly sang themselves to rest. This indeed was no night for sleep; more was it a time for quiet contemplation of all the things that make life good and noble and worthy of the living. How terrible, how awful it would be when I should in the end return to the narrow beaten track of city life, and once again be fettered to "the trivial round, the common task" that knows no magic spell and thrills with no mystic breath. Could it ever be that the duties that bind and numb, the needs that hamper and clog, the tasks that chill and estrange, should once again enshroud me in their toils? Such I suppose are the meditations of everyone who breaks away from home to enjoy for a spell the bounties of nature and whose canopy is the sky.
In the morning I awoke as fresh as the merry sandpipers and waterwagtails that ran and hopped about in dozens. There was no trace of fatigue, no thought but of the glorious day that was opening, no regret but that every day had not brought and would not bring this rapturous dawn.
I learned in the village that I had indeed slept in the middle of the Arkansas River! The summer had been excessively dry and that part of the river which, several hundred miles away, had risen boisterously in the heart of the Rockies and had not been dried up with the heat, had drained through the sandy bed, never to emerge again. This though was one of many rivers that I was to meet with no water in them. Sometimes even, I was tosee fences and railways erected across would-be rivers to prevent the cattle straying!