Fact revealed itself stranger than fiction once more. Something turned up very speedily. It came in the form of a "Marmon" touring car, bearing a Californian number-plate. I had taken the precaution, of course, to leave Lizzie in the right spot, so that no disinclined passer-by could get through if he wanted to. After all, one musn't rely on everyone playing the Good Samaritan.
The two occupants of the car were courtesy itself. They not only assisted me in lifting Lizzie over the pièce de résistance, but also showed considerable interest in me. Out here, where friendship between motorists is much more marked (almost as a matter of necessity), there is seldom any need for anxiety, and it is remarkable how potent a thing is this roadside courtesy. Practically every town I stopped at afterwards had heard of the strange traveller who was coming along on a 10 h.p. motor-cycle, and awaited my arrival with interest.
"Had a fella in here on his way to California told us about you," said one garage hand, in the heart of Arizona. "Said you'd be here sooner or later."
"Oh yes? And how long ago was that?" I queried.
"Um—guess well over a couple of weeks ago." (The word "fortnight" is unknown in America.)
Such little incidents happened many times, and these, coupled with the amazing reports that had been circulated by the Western Press about me since that inflammatory article on "Roads," etc., in the Kansas City Star, had generally managed to achieve for me quite a notorious reputation in most towns long before I ever rattled into their midst.
It was now nearly fifty miles to the next town. I pushed ahead as fast as I could to reach it before dark. Progress, however, was slow. In places where the road was not fenced, I rode upon the rocky prairie. It was, for the most part, a considerable improvement, and one could ride around the bogs and mud-holes instead of crossing them.
Never had I been in such wild and barren country. It was quite beyond hope of cultivation in most places, being strewn with rough stones, rocks, and boulders, and only sparsely covered with meagre-looking grass which, in its efforts to keep alive at all, had to arrange itself in small tufts dotted here and there in order to derive the maximum nutriment from the scanty, unfruitful soil. The country itself changed from flat to hilly as the Sangre de Cristo range once more drew nearer. When it became hilly, great rocks projected through the surface of the trail, which seldom or never swerved to avoid them.
The trail itself resolved itself later on into no more than a mere medley of ruts and grass-bare strips of all widths, running and crossing each other at all angles and in all directions. There was no time to look around and enjoy the wild scenery or study the ever-changing sky-line; it was "eyes on the road" all the time. It was quite impossible to dodge more than a fraction of the rocks and boulders, and one was always abruptly brought back to stern reality, if for an instant one's thoughts diverged to other things, by a sudden shock from one's front wheel, or a sickening crash on the bottom or side of the crank-case.
It was a slow job, and travelling was more in the line of a mountain goat than a motor-cycle. I was ultimately satisfied if I could average eight or ten miles an hour.