We went in very cautiously, very slowly, the water came up and up, almost to the floor boards. The rest of the story is perfectly tame and flat; our car went through it like a duck!
Further on, we came to several fords, all small and shallow, and we splashed through them gleefully. We passed great herds of cattle and any number of cowboys. We saw hundreds of gophers, ran our wheels over two rattlesnakes, and escaped—one skunk.
In Trinidad we ran across our first companion motor tourists. “Kansas City to Los Angeles” was written in letters six inches high with an American pennant on one side, and the name of a popular machine on the other. Another car, a Ford, announcing that it was bound from Lincoln, Nebraska, to San Francisco, had enough banners to decorate the room of a schoolboy. The owners of these two talked volubly on touring in general and the roads ahead in particular. The owner of the Ford, adjusting the vizor of his yachting cap and pulling on his gauntlets, looked at us doubtfully.
“Well,” said he, “everyone to his own liking! I myself prefer a shorter, lighter car!”
“Are you going to try to take that machine down the Bajada?” asked the other. “I’m glad I haven’t the job of driving her even over the Raton!”
“My, but she’s a peach!” exclaimed an enthusiastic mechanic. “Don’t you have no fear, mister!” he whispered to E. M. “The stage coaches they used to go over this road to Santa Fé; if they could get over, I guess you can!”
It had never occurred to us that we couldn’t, but the reminder of the lumbering caravans was comforting, and we started tranquilly to climb the Colorado side of the Raton divide. We passed first one, and then the other of the two cars, whose owners had little opinion of ours. Did they believe their ugly snub-nosed tin kettles, panting and puffing and chug-chugging up the grade, like asthmatic King Charles spaniels, better hill-climbers than our beautiful, big, long engine, that took the ascent without the slightest loss of breath even in the almost nine thousand feet of altitude? We had looked at the two machines in much the same way that passengers in the cab of a locomotive might look at a country cart trundling along the road, for we had pulled smoothly by them in much the same way that the locomotive passes the cart.
We have all heard the story of the hare and the tortoise, and the old adage, “He who laughs last——” It was all very well as long as we remained in the state of Colorado! But the instant we crossed the Divide, our beautiful great, long, powerful machine lay down perfectly flat on its stomach and could not budge until one of these despised snub-nosed spaniels heaped coals of fire on our heads by kindly pulling us out.
Because of their highness—one of the chief attributes of their ugliness—the other two cars could under the present conditions travel along without hindrance, whereas we discovered to our chagrin that we had far too little clearance, and the first venturing into New Mexico ruts held us fast.