Across America by Motor-cycle

by C. K. Shepherd

"Righto, glad to have your company, but we're not speed merchants like I guess you are with that 'oss there."

"Don't make any mistake, brother. I passed the speed craze a thousand miles back. It doesn't pay."

So we retraced our tracks, the car leading. It was shorn entirely of mudwings and footboards to save the wheels becoming clogged or the running boards fouling the road. On the back was strapped a large trunk. This I found is the usual way of travel by "auto" in the West. Seldom does one see wings on a car that is driven for any distance from home. Running boards, if present, are generally of an improvised variety made by planks suspended and fastened in place by ropes around the body work. Thus the road clearance is increased and the necessity for constant cleaning removed. By far the most popular "machine" is the Ford. You can buy one cheap and sell it as scrap when the journey, if a long one, is finished. Owners of large expensive touring cars very often have a Ford as well for emergencies and for long distance travelling. In New Mexico and Arizona I have seen scores of huge touring cars stuck helplessly in the road and often abandoned altogether until the seasons permit of their removal.

I followed my friends from Texas along little pathways and rough tracks strewn with boulders, through gaps in fences, across fields and back gardens, all, to my mind, at an alarming pace. It was only with difficulty that I kept up with them at all, owing to the many ruts and rocks and other obstructions that are far more hindering to two wheels than four.

Arrived eventually in Springer, I resolved to postpone the promised meal until later in the day.

We passed many ranches and crossed many mud-holes, some of alarming width across. In most I managed to fall off at least once and wallowed in the mud. Sometimes the car got so far ahead as to be lost altogether, but after each encounter with a mud-lake I managed to make up the lost time.

Thus passed nearly thirty miles in which I realized the utter absurdity of two wheels compared with four. At one place I lost so much time that I began to give up as hopeless the attempt to keep up with the car ahead. After all, what was the use? Once out of the mire, however, the trail became better and turned into loose sand for many miles.

Over this sand I made good progress. It was now nearly midday, and I had visions of a meal in Wagonmound, a small village some twenty miles away. The appetite was there all right, and as I trimmed off mile after mile at good speed I forgot all about mud-holes and the like.

All at once the engine burst into a wild roar and Lizzie began to slow down. What new trouble was this? A broken chain, or something worse? I stopped as quickly as I could and proceeded to an examination of the transmission. The chain was all right, but the engine sprocket had almost come right off the driving shaft. The key and nut, where were they?

For an hour I searched up and down in the sand and in the grass at the roadside for the missing parts, but without success. The sun was almost vertically above and its rays poured down unmercifully from a cloudless sky. There was not a sign of water or of any living thing in any direction.