Let me forget. These things are not good to gloat upon! I remember but one amusing incident, which was but the forerunner of many more to come. I had returned to the road for a spell. I came to a slight dip. It was like a lake full of fluid mud where a wayward stream had swollen with the rains and encroached upon the sanctity of the road. "Not negotiable" was the unspoken verdict. Strange to say, the prairie was now fenced off from the road boundary, so there was no avoiding the coming struggle. "It's got to be done, so here goes"; slowly I dived into the yellow mass. Just half-way the back wheel turned to jelly and seemed to crumple up to nothing. With one big splosh the whole five hundred-weight of us flopped gaily over into the mire. Pinned down by the weight of the machine, the mud had ample time to soak through all my clothing, into my pockets and down my neck. Lizzie's submersion would have been entire instead of partial had I not intervened.... After a short struggle I ultimately succeeded in extricating my right foot from between the brake-pedal and the engine, and heaved the bulky mass from its repose. No sooner was this done than we slithered once more and fell over en bloc on the opposite side.
Oh, the joys of motor-cycling in Yankeeland!
I did get to Walsenburg that night. As luck would have it, the two hotels were full. At least the desk-clerks avowed by the bones of their saintly grandmothers that there wasn't a room left. Probably they were moved to anxiety lest their worthy name should be soiled by this mud-covered intruder!
I found a room after a long search at a fifth-rate "doss-house" devoid of furniture, where the landlady demanded my money in advance before giving me the key to my room.
Thus passed another day.
[CHAPTER XIII]
IN SOUTHERN COLORADO
There is only one road in the States as bad as that from Walsenburg to Trinidad. I refer to the road from Trinidad to Walsenburg.
In spite of that it was a good road; I got through. It took endless patience, perseverance and a morning of time to do those fifty weary miles. The scenery was strange, almost to the point of weirdness. From the surrounding flatness would rise sudden plateaus, with dead vertical sides and perfectly flat tops. Even the hills and mountains where they occurred (save in the distant Rockies) were modelled on the same plan, rising abruptly from the plain and ascending in two, three or more sudden steps. The effect was just as though the land architecture had been entrusted to some aspiring cubist or futurist instead of to the well-disciplined laws of Nature.