I returned to another examination to discover whether I could remove a nut from any other part of the machine to replace the defaulter. Not a nut was there anywhere that at all approached either the size or the thread required. I searched once more, wondering in how many days' time another vehicle would pass that way, and half resolved to walk the next twenty miles.
What! Leave Lizzie and walk! Never!
Another hour elapsed. I had explored all the ruts and searched every inch of the road for half a mile back. I stopped, and wondered where I could find water to drink. Water would be even more acceptable than the nut and key now. I scanned the sun-baked prairie in all directions. From horizon to horizon there was nothing but the solitary distant mountains, and here and there a lonely parched-up hill. Truly a nice outlook! Henceforth I would carry a water-bag with me.
I decided to return to Lizzie, push her off the road and try walking. But just to think of coming 3,000 miles in her constant company, and then having to forsake her! "Poor old Lizzie, she's a dear old crock," I murmured to myself.
What was that? I stooped down to see, and there hidden in a crack in the hard mud was the missing key. That put a different aspect on matters altogether. The nut would in all probability not be far away. I set out to explore every stone and every rut and every crack. Sure enough I found it not very far away.
In a few minutes the midsummer air was whistling past my ears once again.
In ten minutes I found myself surveying the biggest thing in mud-lakes that it has ever been my misfortune to negotiate. The road was fenced in, naturally. There was a ranch on either side of it. The lake of mud extended sideways to the very borders of the road, ninety feet wide. The distance across was about fifty yards. I estimated that the mud and water were waist-deep in the middle. Ridges and furrows of harder mud, where passing cars had churned it up, in a desperate attempt to get through, led into the sickly mass and then were lost.
"This requires a scientist, not a motor-cyclist, to cross," I averred, and, propping Lizzie upon her stand, went to reconnoitre.
I then created a precedent in the art of crossing mud-holes by which I benefited on all future occasions. I was wearing water-tight field boots which came up to my knees. The modus operandi was this: I would select a likely-looking rut and walk along it as far as I could without the water coming over the top of my boots. If it came over I went back and tried another one. This process was repeated until I had a good idea how the land lay. If I could possibly get through without the mud reaching my knees, I knew I could get Lizzie through all right. This manner of prospecting in advance I found indispensable and at the same time perfectly successful.
I got through somehow, but prayed that I should never meet another like that.