A Petrified Leviathan.
"Lizzie" in the Petrified Forest, Arizona.
The sun was nearly setting when a couple of hours later I set out from Holbrook, well fed and well refreshed. From my map I judged I should be able to reach the Little Colorado River, on whose banks I could spend the night. But in Arizona the sun sets quickly. It can almost be said to get dark with a bump. The result was that in half an hour I was completely lost in the outskirts of the Great Arizona Desert. The trail had somehow disappeared, I knew not where, and but for my headlight, I should undoubtedly have ended in difficulties amid the inky blackness. Loth to turn back, I continued over the almost trackless waste of rock, sand, and prairie. I arrived at the rocky bed of a small stream. There were a few inches of water here and there, but it was not perceptibly moving. It could not possibly be the Little Colorado. I walked across to the other side. There I found a large ditch, more like an artificial dyke, that I knew I could never get Lizzie across. There was grass growing near, however, so I laid down my bed for the night, resolving to leave further investigations till daylight.
I should have known better than to camp by an almost stagnant stream, but I was so utterly tired that I defied the counsel of my own experience. Mosquitoes literally filled the air. Never have I known them so thick and so tenacious. The vibration of millions of wings kept the air in a constant shriek—a wild yell that never abated. I could only obtain relief from their attacks by enveloping my face completely with the thick blanket, and breathing through it. Then everything became so hot—the night itself was very sultry—that sleep was next to impossible. I snatched an hour or two of rest, but was a mass of bites and itching lumps next day.
In the morning, I returned to Holbrook, had breakfast, and searched for information about the road. It appeared that a bridge had collapsed somewhere, so a new trail had been formed to circumvent it. I had missed the turning the night before. At the garage where I made these inquiries, I took the opportunity of removing Lizzie's wheels, and of cleaning and adjusting the spindles. I packed them with new grease in preparation for the sandy journey to come, and removed and re-aligned the chain sprockets; I wanted no breakdowns or searches for missing parts in the baking, sandy desert. It was as well that I had taken precautions. I found the lock ring of one chain wheel missing altogether, and the sprocket half-way unscrewed from its shaft. The only item for regret was the charge of one dollar for the use of the garage! Having already had experience of American garage mechanics, I resolved not to allow any more to learn their trade at Lizzie's expense.
I had no difficulty in picking up the trail in the full light of day. Once again I set out to cross the great Desert of Arizona. The next town, a kind of oasis, was Winslow, about forty miles away. The barren prairie soon gave way to bare limestone rocks and shifting sand; vegetation disappeared altogether, save for occasional clumps of greeny-grey sage brush dotted here and there over the rocky waste that ever met the eye. The air was hot but clear. On an elevation one could see for tremendous distances. The little tuft of black smoke that hung over Winslow looked clear enough to be a mile or two away. It was thirty; in the distance was a great silver line, threading its way intermittently across the plain. I knew it to be the Little Colorado, which, like its mother, the Great Colorado, flows nearly the whole of its length in a canyon and seems deliberately to choose the path of greatest resistance, cutting through rocks and gorges of limestone and granite with ne'er a murmur.
As Winslow drew near, the narrow sandy track gave way to a broad concrete highway. I had not seen a made road of any description for many days. The appearance of concrete here in the middle of a desert seemed ridiculous. I would enjoy it to the full. Lizzie's throttle jumped open unexpectedly and away we sailed through the breeze. "There's a catch in this somewhere," I told myself. There was! It nearly meant grief. The city architect had foreseen the goading lure of that cold flat stretch of concrete and made up his mind that speeding should not exist thereon. So he made several dips therein at intervals, each dip about five or ten feet below the normal level of the road. Any attempt to travel at more than twenty would mean damage to the vehicle when it hit the opposite side. Unfortunately these obstructions were absolutely invisible until but a few feet ahead. Sometimes there was a warning. More often there was not. The first I came to quite unawares and at a high speed. The machine with its momentum nearly leapt clean across the space, and had I been going much slower it would have struck the opposite side lower down and inevitably have caused a serious crash. I went warily after that and wondered what ingeniously contrived anti-speeding devices I should meet next.