On the right there lies the great "Death Valley" that stretches a hundred miles to the north between the Armagosa and the Paramint Mountains. Its name is suggestive of the many people who have miserably perished of thirst in its clutches. It is the remains of a long-since dried-up inland lake and parts of it are 150 feet below the level of the sea. There is nothing in it save bare rock and shifting alkali sand, with here and there a cactus or a little sage. The heat is tremendous and the thermometer sometimes rises to 140°. In all, not a pleasant place either to live in or to die. But there are those who in the search for gold live here for months at a stretch.
Confound it! There goes No. 1 cylinder again. Why doesn't she fire? Am I to start overhauling the engine in this terrible place? I stop to change a plug.... Nothing doing.... Try another.... Still no result. For ten minutes I tinker with red-hot tools. Gee! the blessed machine will be melting soon if we don't move quick. In disgust I go on again with only three cylinders working. Past memories crowd into my mind, but the eternal battle with the loose sand suffices to keep them out.
It was too bad, to start playing pranks like this within a few hours of the coast. The sand of the road absorbed most of the power I now had left and often I had to change down to bottom gear to get along at all. It was wonderful what a difference just that one cylinder made, and it was most annoying that it should happen just here, where the earth was nothing more than a confused mass of rocks and sand, and the sun stood vertically above in the sky. "Thank Heaven, I've some water left, if anything happens," thought I.
"What in the world is that thing?" I asked myself. Closer acquaintance proved it to be a motor lorry, dressed up as a caravan and minus a back axle—a most remarkable sight in most remarkable surroundings. From the numerous loop-tracks that swerved around it, it had evidently stood there many days. Its owner was lying underneath on his back.
"Pretty place to change a back axle, old man," I remarked intelligently.
"Yep. Not the kind o' thing a feller does for the fun of it, either," he retorted, scrambling out from his resting-place in the sand.
"Well, is there anything I can do for you, anyway? I don't quite like to see a chap stranded in a blankety-blank country like this on blankety-blank roads like these." I forget just the adjectives I used, but I know they were hardly of the drawing-room variety. Imagine my surprise when a feminine voice from inside chirped out:
"Yes, that's just about got 'em sized up! I've never heard such a mighty cute description of 'em."
Five days they had been there. The back axle had broken under the huge strain of dragging the load through the deep, loose sand. A passing car had taken it to San Bernardino to be repaired, and other passing cars had kept them well supplied with water. They expected to have the axle back the next day and then had nothing to fear. As I could do nothing for them, I propped Lizzie up against the side of the lorry and tried once more to persuade No. 1 cylinder to join hands with the rest.
After half an hour of useless toil, I bade farewell to the caravan and its occupants.