We got back to Flagstaff all right that evening and, accepting the hospitality of one of the astronomers at Mars Hill, I spent the night at his bungalow up amongst the pine trees. It was nearly a month before I regained the use of my finger and over three months before the sense of feeling came back to it. Evidently it had been broken at or near the joint.
Two days afterwards I made an unwilling exit from Flagstaff. I was so enamoured with the spirit of the West and the cordiality of its people, as well as the scenery and the climate, that it seemed a shame to move away. But how could I do otherwise when in three days' good running I should be enjoying the reality of the deep blue Pacific washing up against the fringe of some golden Californian valley?
From Flagstaff to Williams, a thirty-mile jaunt, the road traversed the edges of the Coconino Forest. In places it was almost impassable. Stretches of rock-hard mud, that had been cut up into fantastic shapes, hindered progress for hundreds of yards at a stretch. I had often to resort to the old expedient of chipping the edges of the ruts away in advance to enable Lizzie's cradle frame to get through. Then for miles there were stretches of incredible roughness where often I left the road and scrambled over the rough prairie at the side, leaping over gullies, mounds, cracks, and rocks in preference to the treacherous trail. But the wild scenery compensated for everything. It was exquisite.
Town after town slowly but surely went by, and as they did so, the country grew wilder and the climate hotter. The trail wound through great gorges with towering cliffs that obscured most of the sky. Mad rivers would come rushing down from mountain sides and seldom were there bridges with which to cross them. Vegetation became less plentiful and here and there were stretches of barren prairie land with great boulders and masses of rock spread indiscriminately about them.
Past Ashforks, some sixty miles from Flagstaff, I came upon a Ford car by a wide, rough-bedded, unbridged river. The owner, dressed in blue combination overalls (the standard garment of the West) was playing round it with a "monkey-wrench."
"Want anything, brother?" I asked.
"No thanks, nothing wrong," he replied, eyeing Lizzie and me curiously up and down. "Gee! What the ..." (his eye caught the number plate)—"Well, I'll be goldarned!"
"How's the road ahead?" I asked, ignoring his evident amazement at one so young having come so far!
"Pretty tough in places. You've got a fairly good run for a hundred miles, but you've got to keep your eyes skinned for washouts. There's a big one about ten miles further on, just before you come to Pineveta. You can't miss it. It's just beyond a big cliff on the left side where it says 'Repent Your Sins, the End is at Hand.' And by G—, you'd better repent 'em quick in case anything does happen!"
Washouts there were, good and plentiful. Great gullies had been cut across the roads by the rains. Many were not visible much before they were felt. On the whole it was exciting running.