Chapter II: Part 2

And our clothes: Of course, a silk or an alpaca dust-coat; linen soon shows soil and looks mussy. This applies to the ladies. I won’t attempt to advise men, for they will wear what best suits them. We wore one-piece gowns of serge, and, when it was hot, voile or even gingham. We each had a silk afternoon frock, which would shake out and look presentable for dinner, a black evening gown for dress-up occasions, a half-dozen crêpe de chine blouses, and a cloth suit. We could have done without the suits. They were used but once or twice. We all took heaps of under-linen, only to find that we could get one-day laundry service in any good hotel, and could buy almost anything in the cities, and even in the small towns. The color of our linen resembled coffee at times, but, aside from that unpleasant feature, we could keep clean and comfortable with no trouble. We each had a sport skirt, a sweater, shoes, a pair of evening pumps, a pair of heavy top-boots, and two pairs of Oxford ties, black and tan, with sensible heels. In driving, I soon found the long-vamp, pointed toe not only a nuisance, but dangerous, and used an old-fashioned, round-toed low shoe. Hats! There every woman is a law unto herself. We each had a good-looking hat in the hat-bag, which, after being tied to the rug-rail, sat on, smashed by the bags, and wet a few times, still kept our hats very presentable. Straw hats will break and be ruined. Those made of ribbon or black satin will withstand the weight of a ton of luggage and come out looking fairly decent. Wash gloves proved practical, also white Shetland veils. Toodles was swathed like an escaped harem beauty; but one good Shetland veil, well tied and pinned in, kept my sailor hat in place comfortably, even when the top was down and I was driving. The hat with a brim is a necessity when the sun shines for weeks at a time. I did not wear motor goggles, but the others did. Through all the Western states we found the female population in khaki breeches and puttees, khaki blouses, and hats like a sun-bonnet or a cowboy’s sombrero, and occasionally a coat to match, which was short and of a most unbecoming length. Often high tan boots were substituted for the puttees. It was a sensible costume, and well adapted to the country and life in the open that Western women lead. They all rode astride, wisely. Often we met parties of four in a Ford just hitting the high spots on the road.

The farther we went into the real West, the West of the movies and the early days pictured by Bret Harte, we realized what part these Western women had played, and were still playing, in their unselfish, brave, industrious, vital lives, in the opening and developing of that vast territory, and in making such a trip as ours comfortable, safe, and even possible. I think, if I ever take the trip again, I shall adopt khaki breeches, and send my petticoats by express to our destination. This reminds me that I have not spoken of our trunks. Nine out of ten people that we have met in San Francisco have asked, “What became of your trunks, or didn’t you have any?” Before leaving New York we sent, collect, by American Railway Express, a large wardrobe trunk, the usual steamer trunk, and a French hat-box to San Francisco, “Hold until claimed.” These were held for seven weeks, and the total expense, delivered to our hotel, was $45.50--not at all bad.

No matter of what material your clothes are made, a long motor trip ruins them. It is a large expense to get them pressed, and a small electric iron answers the purpose. It takes up but little space--every small hotel is equipped with electricity--and you appear _sans_ creases and wrinkles. Don’t do as one friend did, who put it in her traveling case with her bottles. One good bump did the business, and when she took it out “the mess of tooth-powder, cold cream, sunburn lotion, and broken glass was enough to spoil my trip.” Her stock was soon replenished. In every small town across the continent, without _one_ exception, we found the Rexall drugs and articles for sale; even when the town failed to boast of a ten-cent store, Dr. Rexall was on hand. It struck us as very remarkable, and was most convenient many times.

The one article that I regretted not bringing was a good camera. When all our friends said, “Of course, you will take a camera,” my husband replied, that he wouldn’t be bothered with one; “they are a perfect nuisance.” That may be true, and the camera did not go touring; but some incidents that occurred cannot be adequately pictured in words--one in particular, our encounter with bears! Of this I shall speak later.

And now, of the car! I wished my husband, who had all the care of the car, to write his chapter. “Every man knows what to take, and how to care for his car, and there is no use giving any advice.” Perhaps he will--he has!

BY T. G. M. (UNDER PROTEST)

The authoress demands that I, a mere hubby, include a few chirps of advice and what-nots to the intrepid masculine persuasion who drives his own car and contemplates the trip across. You will first undoubtedly think of wearing apparel, and pass those attractive window displays in your home city, with Claude in a lovely green plush hunting suit and Myrtle in a rakish hat, leather coat, and white shoes! Don’t succumb, but take your old “comfy” gray golf or outing suit, with extra trousers, two caps, a medium-weight overcoat, a stout pair of driving-gloves, a half-dozen golf shirts with short sleeves (these are a joy for hot-weather driving and working around the car), a long pongee dust-coat, and one extra suit for emergencies. Your “soup and fish” may better be left at home, unless you plan a stay in some city. One scarcely ever sees evening dress about the hotels in the West, especially among tourists, and never among their distant cousins, the “Fordists.”

For the car, I should carry a wire cable, a tow-line, a spool of annealed wire, six extra spark-plugs, two spare mounted shoes, an extra tube, a valve, and a valve-spring. Be provided with an engine-driven tire-pump, a roll of tape, a tube-repair kit (Lowe’s is a good one), and a twelve-inch Stillson pipe wrench, which you may find a life-saver in an hour of despair. Of course, you will have oil and grease-guns, a pound of grease, and plenty of soft old cloths (which are preferable to waste), and your regular equipment of tools.

Our first puncture was a nightmare. The car was heavily loaded with fourteen pieces of baggage, four spare tires, etc., and it taxed my vocabulary and my moral and physical strength to raise that right rear wheel. Next day I acquired a T. C. (or traveling companion) that never left me--a nice scraggly four-by-six wood block about thirty inches long, chamfered at one end. Of course, the next puncture was also a rear-wheel tire--this time the left one; but here was where T. C. came in. I wedged the chamfered end of T. C. under and ahead of said tire, started the engine, and advanced the car until it rode the block, then put the jack under the rear axle and took the car-weight off the block, pulled out the block, changed the tire, pushed the car off the jack--and presto! there it was, ready for the road, and not even a hair mussed. T. C. is my friend!

By all means acquire honestly (surreptitiously, if you must) a waterproof khaki tarpaulin about eight feet by five. You will find this invaluable to cover the spot where you must kneel or lie to fix things when Old Father Fate hands you a puncture or other kill-joy.

Cord tires are also worth your while; they not only wear much better, and stand up under heat and sand, but you can safely carry a low tire-pressure. Our car weighed close to five thousand pounds, but we carried only fifty-five to sixty pounds pressure. This makes for comfortable riding, reduces your chances of a broken spring, and eases the pain when bucking the deadly chuck-holes that look so harmless but feel much worse than you anticipate--yes, much worse!

We preferred the gas sold by the service stations of reliable oil companies, and, in the main, found it much better and cheaper than the average garage gas--and, between friends, more accurately measured.

The tire-service stations are provided with handy local maps, and between them and the garages you can get the best information relative to the roads in general, and particularly detours, the motorists’ bugbear. Road conditions often change entirely in a few days, and, outside of guiding you along the main traveled routes, the Blue Book ordinarily is not of much assistance. For setting-up exercises, every morning I tested my tire-pressure, turned down all grease-cups, looked over steering mechanism, rear axle, drive-shaft, brakes and spring shackles, and, as a result, we came through with flying colors, without the slightest accident, and our car runs better now than when we started, 4154 miles away.

It may be of interest to speak further of the gas, for, as an item of expense, and your greatest necessity, you _have_ to consider it. We saw no Socony gas after leaving Chicago; the Red Crown gas had taken its place. There were a dozen other makes--Union, Iroquois, Shell, Associated, etc., ranging in price from twenty to forty cents a gallon. Every town and many grocery-stores on the road could supply you. As our tank held twenty-one gallons, not once did we have to carry extra gas. The longest stretch was seventy miles without gas for sale. Of course, you get less mileage in the high altitudes, and the radiator needs to be filled several times a day.

We carried an extra can of water, with our drinking-bottles filled, through the highest mountain country and in the desert; otherwise, the town pump was easily found. We had four spare shoes, but used only one. Two punctures from New York to California is a record to bring joy to any motor heart. Twice we picked up nails, and once some joker stuck a long pin into a tire. Dr. B., of Bronxville, New York, advised us to have a Yale lock put on either side of the hood of the engine, remarking, “Those rubes in country garages are mighty inquisitive, and have no love for city cars. I have had my carburetor monkeyed with many times.” We took his advice and saved ourselves a lot of trouble. In the East we paid $1.50 for a night’s storage in a garage. Through the West we have paid as low as fifty cents. Our total mileage, the amount of gas and oil used, and the cost of each, with the garage expenses, I will give later.

I must add that, except for cleaning the spark-plugs, we had no engine trouble, and the car arrived in perfectly good shape in California.

VII

THE TWIN CITIES AND TEN THOUSAND LAKES

August 6th and 7th we spent in St. Paul, at the first-class St. Paul Hotel--a perfect joy! Our stay here was filled with interest. The capitol building is a noble pile. Summit Avenue boasts of many beautiful homes, but the business life is fast overtaking it. Minneapolis is such a close neighbor that we could not tell where one city began and the other left off. Here cousins took us to the Athletic Club for lunch, in as beautiful a café as we have seen. A bounteous luncheon was served for sixty cents that we would have paid at least two dollars for in New York. This was our last feast on broiled whitefish. As we were all chatting over our trip, a crash as of broken china brought us to a pause. “What in Heaven’s name is that?” we exclaimed. “Oh, just the boys in the ‘training’ café, having a hurry-up lunch,” laughed our host. On the many floors men were spending their noon-hour exercising and keeping themselves fit.

We drove out to the famous summer resort, Lake Minnetonka, picturesque and edged with lovely summer homes. Near by were the Minnehaha Falls, known to all Longfellow lovers, and the Fort Snelling reservation, where the sturdy pioneers defended their lives in the old round tower and block-house. By far the most attractive spot we visited was Christmas Lake, seventeen miles out of town, where the Radisson Inn nestles in the woods, quite hidden from the highway. No private villa could be more lovely. In the large dining-room, which was really a sun-parlor, each table had its own color-scheme, with vines and wild flowers. Plants, ferns, vines, and flowers growing everywhere in the most original baskets and boxes made of twigs, bark, or moss. We all stood exclaiming, like a lot of children, “Isn’t it adorable?”--“Oh, my dear, _do_ look at this Indian rug!”--“Where did they get this willow furniture?”--“Altman never had such exquisite cretonnes!”--“Let’s give up the trip and stop here!”--and so on. We were told that the table was in keeping with the house, and that the place was full all season. This was another high spot on the trip.

Still another pleasure was in store for us--we were to play golf and dine at the Town and City Club. The club is situated between the two cities, near the banks of the Mississippi River. We drove past before we realized that it was not a private estate. Stopping a young man, we asked where the club was. “Got me stuck, Missis; never heard of it.” A small boy of seven came up, and, with a withering glance which took us all in, waved his arm, saying, “Right before your eyes!” We drove through lovely grounds to the club-house. Such gorgeous old trees!--hedges that made you think of Devonshire, lawns like velvet, and a riot of color in the beds and borders--every flowering shrub and plant you could dream of. Of course, the links were fine, and the twilight lasted until nearly nine o’clock. We had ordered dinner in advance; so by a quarter to nine we were seated at our table, with faultless appointments, enjoying such a good dinner, and watching the sky-line of Minneapolis, with its church spires and towering buildings, fade in the afterglow of the sunset. Not one of us spoke as the twilight deepened and the stars came out; we went out on the lawn and saw the new harvest moon through the trees--a bit of Nature’s fairyland, the memory of which will always stay with us.

Here we left the Yellowstone Trail and followed the National Parks Highway north to Fargo, North Dakota, 265 miles; winding in and out over good roads through a myriad of lakes--ten thousand, we were told--in Minnesota. Every mile of the way, as far as the eye could see, were acres of potatoes, corn, and wheat, fertile and green. If you want to visualize Frank Norris’s books and understand how we can feed starving Europe, motor through this state. It was harvest-time. Great tractors were snorting like live creatures, hundreds of men on the big ranches were “bringing in the sheaves,” the country was alive with action, and the world was to reap the benefit of the toil and endless energy of these sturdy men. You have never _seen_ our country until you have traveled through this great grain-belt. Every small town had two or three grain elevators. There were beautiful fields of alfalfa, a mass of bloom with its bluish purple flower as sweet as honey. As we came near these fields, the air was always cool. We couldn’t account for it; but it is a strange fact that the air is considerably cooler when you near an alfalfa field. Can you see the picture? Lakes on every side, as blue as great sapphires, sparkling in the sun, the road lined with the wild sunflowers, often forming a golden hedge on either side for miles, the blue mass of color of the alfalfa fields, and above it the green corn and golden wheat. The magpies were in flocks, and the sea-gulls were skimming over the inland lakes, hundreds of miles from any large body of water, and hundreds more of them were resting on the shores. Strange, was it not? Through the West we have noted the absence of many birds, especially in Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. But here the crops were so abundant that the little songsters “had first whack at the grain,” as my husband remarked. He was the bird-man of the party, and when he was driving at a top-notch speed or turning a hairpin curve he would calmly ask, “Did you girls see that blue heron?”

Alexandria, and the hotel of the same name, were comfortable beyond our hopes. The next day we passed through Fergus Falls, where the cyclone of June 22d had demolished the better part of the town. It had been a thriving, attractive place in the heart of the grain-belt, with fine buildings and pretty homes. Now, less than two months later, the wreck and débris were appalling. The wind had wrought strange sights. We saw a sewing-machine in the top of a neighbor’s tree, festooned with bedding, petticoats, and a bird-cage. Houses were turned over as if they had been toys; others were crushed to kindling. Here a small tree or a chicken-coop would be intact, and a building five feet away would be demolished. We stopped off for lunch in a small café in the part of the town that had escaped the gale. The people were talking of nothing else. The whole countryside had driven in to see it, to take the sufferers home, or to render assistance. The waitress paid no attention to our order--just talked. “Why, lady, it was the awfullest thing you ever heard tell on! One moment we were all sitting at our work, and then we heard a roar like a mad bull, or thunder, and the sky got so black that you couldn’t see across that counter. Windows smashed in, and this house shook like jelly. Folks were blown down that street like old newspapers. Scared? My Gawd! we just crawled under the counter and prayed! The door was blown in and the front window smashed. A little kid was blown across that street and straight through that broken glass. My maw’s house was shook to pieces. Maw was cookin’, and she and the stove went off together. Paw was feedin’ the cattle; when we found him he was lyin’ in the next lot with a cow a-lyin’ on top of him and a milkpail a-coverin’ of his head. Most everyone got cut by the glass or broke an arm or leg, tryin’ to hold on to somethin’. The piany in the schoolhouse was took up and planted in a street two blocks away not hurt a bit. It sounds just beautiful now. Some folks I know had their two cats and three dogs killed, and the canary was a-singin’ like mad when they found the house in the end of the garden. The wire fences were the worst; they just wound themselves up like yarn.” Many others told us similar weird tales. We left that town, already being rebuilt, a sober party.

“I wonder what would happen to us if we should meet such a cyclone,” said Toodles.

“I think we would ‘blow in’ to lunch with our friends in Boston,” mused the bird-man.

He has given me this list of birds that we saw through the West: Mudhens, bluebirds, bluejays, robins, ospreys, cranes, loons, terns, the Canada goose, song-sparrows, meadowlarks, hawks, wild swans, woodpeckers, orioles, wild doves, and others. Later we saw sagehens and eagles.

VIII

MILLIONS OF GRASSHOPPERS

We had wired to our cousins, Mr. and Mrs. H., of Fargo, to make a reservation for our party, which they did at the Gardner Hotel. We found a big comfortable hotel, with large rooms, good table, and excellent service. We enjoyed our “stop off” of two days here more than in any other city on our trip. Fargo spells hospitality and “pep.” Our greeting was, “What can we do for you?”

“Find the Packard service station, give us some home-cooking, and let us play golf and tennis.”

“There are only two Packard cars in town, but the manager of the garage owns one and can help you out.”

He did--kind, obliging person! Our second request was granted to the full. Never did fried chicken and creamed potatoes covered with gravy taste so good. We went back the next day and finished up the rest of the chicken. After driving about this charming “up-to-tomorrow” Western city, we went out to the Country Club and the links, and met many truly delightful people.

Western people in the same walk of life as your friends at home are traveled, cultured, broad-minded, most interesting people. I was especially impressed by the women. They think for themselves on the public questions of the hour, and voice their opinions in no uncertain terms. As Philip Gibbs said in his article in _Harper’s_ (“Some People I met in America”), “Desperately earnest about the problems of Peace, intrigued to the point of passion about the policy of President Wilson, divided hopelessly in ideals and convictions, so that husbands and wives had to declare a No Man’s Land between their conflicting views.” It is so in our family. My brother has expressed it aptly: “President Wilson is a state of mind. You are all for him, or not at all.” But Heaven help me to keep politics out of this peaceful narrative!

We found many golfers ahead of us. Mrs. W., the chairman of the house committee, and especial hostess of the day, played with us. She played, as all Western women enter into everything, with enthusiasm. The course was flat, easy, and of nine holes.

But the grasshoppers! I had seen plenty of them on the trip while going through the farming country. They would jump into the car, take a ride on the hood or windshield, get on your veil or down your neck, or collect in family parties on the luggage or in your lap; but that was utter isolation compared to the crop on those links. The seventeen-year locust had _nothing_ on these grasshoppers! On the fairway, when you hit your ball, hundreds would fly up in a cloud and your ball was lost to sight. You walked on a carpet of them. It reminded you of “the slaughter of the innocents.” Your clothes were covered with them. When I sat down at the third tee, I heard a crunching noise, unlike anything I ever experienced. Mrs. W. called out--alas! too late--“Oh, you mustn’t sit down until you shake the grasshoppers out of your skirts. You will ruin your clothes.” That white satin skirt has been boiled, parboiled, dry-cleaned, and hung in the sun, but the back looks bilious and pea-green in spots! When I got back to the hotel, I found them inside of my blouse and under-linen, and even in my hair and shoes. It is fortunate that they did not bite, or someone else would be writing this tale.

After real afternoon tea, with toast, hot biscuits, and sandwiches (not our ice-cream cones), we drove back to the city and dined and talked until the lights were put out in the hotel and the elevator man had gone to sleep. We were told of the fine roads through North Dakota, “but not in bad weather; then you will have to reckon with the gumbo.” “Gumbo” is described by Webster as “soup, composed of okra, tomatoes, etc.” But that learned gentleman never drove after a rainstorm in North Dakota.

The next morning the sky looked threatening, but we started out for Jamestown, one hundred miles away. All went well until noon, when a gentle drizzle set in, and we put up the top, stopped under a big tree, had our lunch, and waited until the supposed shower was over. Farther west it had poured; we noticed that the cars coming in were covered with mud, and concluded that they had come over country roads. Surely not the National Parks Highway! So down went the top, and off we started in a _wet_ atmosphere, but not really raining. The chains had not been disturbed since they were comfortably stowed away on leaving New York. One man advised us to put them on, but with a superior don’t-believe-we-will-need-them air we left our tree shelter. He called out after us, “Say, strangers, you don’t know what you all are getting into.” We didn’t, but we jolly soon found out! In ten minutes we had met gumbo, and were sliding, swirling, floundering about in a sea of mud! I will try to describe it. A perfectly solid (apparently) clay road can become as soft as melted butter in an hour. Try to picture a narrow road, with deep ditches, and just one track of ruts, covered with flypaper, vaseline, wet soap, molasses candy (hot and underdone), mire, and any other soft, sticky, slippery, hellish mess that could be mixed--and even that would not be gumbo!

“Thank God for the ruts!” we devoutedly exclaimed. If you once got out of the ruts, your car acted as if it were drunk. It slid, zigzagged, slithered, first headed for one ditch, and then slewed across the road. It acted as if bewitched. We had passed several cars abandoned in the ditch, and those ahead of us, even with chains on, were doing a new version of a fox trot. The road grew worse, the mire deeper. The ruts were now so deep that we just crawled along, and, to prevent getting stalled, we pulled out of them. In a shorter time than it takes to write it, our left front wheel was down in the ditch and the car lying across the road, and stuck fast. That was all that prevented us from being ditched. There we were, unable to move. We had not tried to walk in gumbo. That was an added experience. All three of us got out to see what _could_ be done. It would be impossible to jack the car up there and put on the chains; the jack would have sunk out of sight. And no car could pass us. Your feet stuck in the gumbo so that when you pulled up one foot a mass of mire as large as a market-basket stuck to it, or your shoe came off, and you frantically slid and floundered around until you got it on again. We thought of a dozen clever things to do, _if_ we could only have walked. There was a farmhouse half a mile ahead where no doubt we could have hired a team to pull us out. But how could we get there? My sympathies are all with the fly caught on sticky flypaper! In a short time, a Dodge car came up back of us, a man driving it, with his wife, his son, a boy of fifteen, and a small girl. Being a light car in comparison, and having chains on, they fared better; but they could not pass. They offered to pull us back onto the road. Fortunately we had brought a wire cable with us. This was attached to both cars, and then both tried to back. Did we budge? No such luck! All hands got to work, sliding around like drunken sailors, and filled in back of our wheels with stones, sticks, cornstalks, and dry grass. After being stuck there just one hour, we got back onto the road and into the ruts, and slowly we crawled up to the top of a hill, where some guiding angel had scattered ashes and sand. We got to a dry, grassy spot, where a sadder and wiser driver put on the chains. How did we get there, Toodles and I? Those blessed Dodge people _invited_ us to stand on their running-boards while they crawled up the hill. Later we overtook them having tire troubles, and we were glad to be able to return their kindness. The next lovely job was to clean our shoes. Nothing can stick worse than gumbo, and we had been soaked in it. Needless to say that our shoes were ruined, but we were lucky it was not the car.

So, with care, and crawling about five miles an hour, still slipping and sliding like eels, we covered the forty miles into Jamestown. The hotel dining-room was closed, and we had supper in a Chinese restaurant, then went to have our shoes cleaned in what had been before July 1st a typical Western saloon. It was filled with miners and cowboys playing billiards, and a villainous automatic piano playing rag-time. We sat up in the chairs while a “China-boy” dug at the gumbo, now hard as stone. One Westerner stood there taking us all in, and drawled, “You folks must have struck gumbo.” We had; but then again--“It might have been worse.”

IX

THE BAD LANDS--“NATURE’S FREAKIEST MOOD”

From now on we experienced the real thrills, the discomforts, and the wonders of our trip. Will the Eastern people (or the rest of our country) ever realize the debt of gratitude that we owe to those early pioneers--the men who blazed the trails across the wilderness, suffering every privation, facing inconceivable dangers, and many dying of cold and starvation? As we studied our map and saw those hundreds of miles ahead of us, through the bad lands, over the dry Montana plains, through the desert, and over the Rocky Mountains, I admit that it seemed like the end of the world, and a million miles from home--almost a foolhardy undertaking! Then we felt ashamed of ourselves. With a good car, and all of us in prime condition, we left old gumbo and fears behind, and made a fresh start. The big towns are one hundred miles apart. Governor H. had told us not to stop in Bismarck, a fine big city, but to go across the Little Missouri River to Mandan, sixteen miles farther on. Bismarck’s fine hotels and cement pavements were a great temptation to stop, but our hopes were more than realized. This river, like all of these Western rivers, once navigable by big boats, was so low that teams were driving across in many places. When we reached the ferry we found a tiny steamer with paddle-wheels at the stern waiting for us. It held two small cars beside ours. On the other side a corduroy road had been built out over what had been the bed of the river at least a quarter of a mile, so that the ferry could land. The rest of the way was through pine woods.

Mandan is a beautiful city, with the new Lewis and Clark Hotel, owned by Governor H. It was crowded, but when we showed the clerk Governor H.’s signature we were given his private suite. Remember that we had been coming over the plains for a hundred miles, and you can share our joy to walk into a Fifth Avenue hotel, with a Ritz-Carlton suite to revel in. This was where extremes met. It was wonderful that it was so beautiful. It was really more wonderful that it was there at all.

The next day we went through another hundred miles of cattle and grain ranches. We were told that these towns, a hundred miles apart, had been trading-posts and stage-stops in the early days. Dickinson, Glendive, Miles City, and Billings, Montana, are all fine, thriving cities--excellent modern hotels, wide paved streets, fine churches, stores, office buildings, and theaters, not overlooking the movie houses. In passing, I wish to speak of the movies--a national, educational institution, to be reckoned with. If we were not too dead tired after a scrub, change of clothes, and dinner, we went to a movie and saw excellent pictures and the world’s doings to date. Usually there were plenty of electric fans, and always one big “paddle” fan _outside_ the front entrance. This we found the case with banks, office buildings, and shops. (Solve that if you can!) In many dozens of canaries were singing a jubilee. There was always a large clock in full view of the audience--another sensible idea. These cities were equipped with every modern device and invention. They claimed your admiration and deserved your unstinted praise. It was almost impossible to believe that the next morning, ten minutes after you left the pavements, you would again be out on the prairies, and perhaps meet no one for hours.

At Dickinson, North Dakota, we found the St. Charles Hotel very good. We had been told to have lunch the next day in Medora, at the Rough Riders Hotel, one of the few buildings left of the early cowboy days. The town is nothing--a new school and store and a handful of old buildings. It is quite near the ranch where Colonel Roosevelt lived for two years. They instantly tell you that with real pride, for these people loved the man as they knew him. Like the buffalo, the picturesque cowboy is almost extinct. On the big cattle ranches we saw _near_ cowboys--boys in their teens herding the cattle, and some ordinary, dirty-looking men on horses. There were half a dozen men eating noon dinner at the hotel(?), a tumble-down old building about as romantic as any old woodshed. One grizzly old fellow was pointed out as having been a guide for the Colonel. The place was dirty, the food impossible, greasy and cold, and the few bullet-holes in the far-famed bar were not sufficient to make this member of the party rave over the place. It seemed like a travesty, or a ghost of some former existence. You _may_ infer that we did not care for Medora!

For the next hour we climbed steadily up, the roads growing narrow and rocky and full of chuck-holes. Everything that is rough and bad going in the Far West is “chucky,” and we were soon to get acquainted with _real_ chuck-holes. Presently we came out on a plateau, and before us lay the Bad Lands of North Dakota. You may read of them, see pictures of them, or see them from a train, but you have never really seen their wonder, their grotesquely beautiful grandeur, until you stand in their midst as we did. High cliffs, deep canyons, queer formations of stone and earth that look like great castles or human heads. Again they resemble mushrooms of mammoth size, in all colors--gray, pink, orange, black, greens of a dull hue (not from the verdure, for there is none to speak of), yellows, and even purplish and chalky white. Here again you can see the outline of some giant creature, as if it had been carved in a prehistoric age. We are told that the sea once covered these lands. You can plainly see the ridges, like a rock on the ocean shore where the water has receded. I suppose they are called the Bad Lands because they are arid and nothing will grow. They are the wonderlands of this country--geological wonders, left from some glacial period before the foot of man trod the earth. No pen can adequately describe that scene; no brush could do justice to its weird beauty. The stillness of death reigned. Not a bird or a living creature did we see. The way winds around these strange cliffs, now up a steep incline, where you look down at the road below, again in the bottom of a ravine or chuck-hole, and you wonder how you could drive the car either down or up again.

“Did you ever see anything like this, anywhere?”

“No, but it looks like what I imagine the bottom of hell must look like.”

All that day we drove in and out, with an ever-changing panorama of fantastic shapes and colors. We were awed, thrilled to our very marrow, and even now, weeks later, as I write of it, I realize that my hands are cold. Believe me, my friends, this is the acid test of driving. If you qualified, well and good; but if you lost your nerve or your head--a long good-night, and a perfectly good funeral! Glendive, Montana, and the comfortable Jordan Annex looked human and mighty good to us that night. We all admitted that we were scared half to death. But, oh, the wonder and majesty of that sight! We blessed our good car, we blessed our Maker, and we slept as if we had been drugged.

X

THE DUST OF MONTANA

Poor Montana! Burned, scorched to ashes from four summers of drought, and no rain in six months! Everywhere the people told us the same story. The rivers and streams were dry as bones. “Don’t stop here for water” was a familiar sign. We met hundreds of families driving out, in old “prairie-schooners,” with all their household furniture and their cattle. These poor souls had to find water for their cattle and themselves. They had tried to raise crops, and were literally driven out. The children looked pinched and starved. The women and men were the color of leather, tanned by the scorching sun of the plains, the dust, and the dry, hot winds. They had lost everything. Their faces were pathos personified. It wrung your heart to see them. We always slowed down and waved to them, and often stopped and talked. It was rare to get a smile from even the children. When we would give some little kiddie an orange, it was the pathetic mother who tried to smile. Before we had covered the four hundred miles across the state, our faces were burned, our lips so dry and cracked that they bled, and our eyes nearly burned out of our heads. Yet we had but a few days of it, and they had suffered for four summers! At night we would soak our hands and faces in cold cream, but the next night they were quite as bad. The dust was from six to eight inches deep, and the roads were either through sand or chucky. We know now why Lohr named his song “My Little Gray Home in the West.” It could not possibly have been any other color. A dozen times we thought our springs were gone. The road looked like a level stretch of dust; then down you would go to the bottom of a chuck-hole with a thud that made your teeth chatter.

The cattle looked as starved as the people. We came to one valley that had been irrigated, and for a mile or so the crops were green. The ditch was full of water--real _wet_ water. Horses and cows, dogs and people were standing in it. We filled our radiator and bottles and laved our hands and faces. Germs or no germs, we drank our fill. In half an hour or less your throat and mouth would be as dry as ashes, and your thirst was insatiable. We found that fruit, especially oranges and pears, quenched the thirst better than water; so we always kept plenty of fruit in the car. The going was so bad that we did not reach Miles City until late. After leaving Fargo, each morning we had taken the precaution to wire ahead for reservations, always adding “driving,” so, if we were belated, the rooms would still be held for us. We had been told that the Olive Hotel at Miles City was the only poor hotel on the route. Everyone had given it a black eye. We had mentioned it to the manager at the Jordan Annex in Glendive. “I think you will find it very comfortable. Our company has taken it over and refurnished it.” When we were sending our usual morning wire, he very politely said that it would be _his_ pleasure to notify them of our coming.

To digress for a moment--the people of Montana pride themselves on their universal courtesy to strangers. Time and again, we had people say, “You have found our people polite and obliging?”--“Yes; they are kindness itself”--and they were.

When we reached the Olive Hotel we were agreeably surprised. Everything was clean and comfortable, looking like Paradise after the dust and scorching sun of the plains. We were having our lunches put up by the hotel each morning, as there was absolutely nothing decent en route (shades of Medora!). I asked for the manager, Mr. Murphy.

“We shall be glad to put you up a lunch,” he said. “What would you like?”

“Anything but _ham_ sandwiches. We have been so fed up on them that we can’t look a pig in the face for fear we will see a family resemblance.” Then I added, “May the bread be cut thin, and buttered?”

He laughed and assured us that it would be “all right.” Right! Ye gods, we had a feast! Oh, how we have blessed dear Mr. Murphy! May his shadow never grow less! As we were starting in the morning the head waitress came out with the lunch neatly done up, saying, “Mr. Murphy has had some extras put in. We like Easterners and try to please tourists.” We paid the modest price of $2.50 (for three people) and decided to curb our curiosity until noon. This was a _real_ occasion, and just the proper spot must be found for our party. Some days we had driven many miles to find a clump of trees to lunch under. Today we went ten miles and never even saw a tree--the deadly monotony of the endless plains--heat, dust, sand, sagebrush the color of ashes, and only a jolly little prairie-dog scurrying to his hole or a hawk flying overhead. Not a tree--not even a big bush to give shade! We asked some ranchers where they got wood for fuel. “There ain’t no wood. Every fellow digs his coal in his own backyard.” It sounded simple, and I was glad to hear that nature had provided some compensations for the farmer, whose life at the best is not all “beer and skittles.”

On we drove until one o’clock--and still no trees! A wail from Toodles: “What about having lunch in the car?” There was a bend in the road over the top of a hill. “I have a hunch that there will be a tree around the bend,” ventured the bird-man. There was!--just one big, glorious cottonwood tree that would shelter a drove of cattle, and the only tree in sight on those plains as far as the eye could see. Out came the faithful old rug and the hamper--and then we unpacked the lunch! Three juicy melons, a whole broiled chicken for each one, thin bread and butter, a jar of potato salad, fresh tomatoes, three jars of marmalade, eggs, crisp lettuce, pickles, and the best chocolate-cake I ever tasted, besides peaches, pears, and hot coffee. You may think we were a lot of greedy pigs, but that was the banner lunch of the trip. May Mr. Murphy never go hungry! He has made three friends for life.

Miles City is the last and best of the representative “cow-towns” of early days. The annual “round-up,” a celebration of frontier days, is usually held on the 4th of July. Here our watches went back an hour. We were now in the land of silver dollars. It had been some years since we had seen them in New York. Out here, when you had a bill changed, you received nothing but silver dollars. A bit heavy, but all right, if you had enough of them.

That night we reached Billings. We had gone through some fertile ranches where the irrigation system had turned an arid waste of sand into fields of green crops. The country improved, as we neared this “Metropolis of Midland Empire,” as they term it, the center of the sugar-beet industry. Wherever we saw crops, there the sugar-beet flourished. They must raise many thousands of tons of them. The fair grounds and elaborate buildings are of interest. It is a real city rising out of the plains, like a living monument to the pioneers, men and women. The Northern Hotel was the finest we had seen since leaving the Twin Cities. We rested up for a day, had the car cleaned and oiled, and had ourselves laundered, shampooed, and manicured, starting refreshed and full of expectations on our last lap to the Yellowstone. In contrast to the Olive Hotel, our lunch here was the one real “hold-up” in any hotel. Six eggs, six tongue sandwiches, and four cups of coffee were $3.75. We protested, and they deducted seventy-five cents.

We had heard pleasing reports of Hunter’s Hot Springs being the French Lick of the West; anything that spelled _water_ sounded good to us, although we had crossed the upper Yellowstone River only to see a little stream so low that the cattle were standing in the middle. There is nothing but the hotel--not even a garage. All the cars were parked in front and stood there all night. The place was crowded with tourists from all over the country. “Hello there!” greeted us, and to our surprise and great pleasure we found our cousins, Mr. and Mrs. H., of Fargo, with the glad tidings that she would go through the park with us. This place is unique--a low, rambling building, with a quarter of a mile of porches, a very large swimming pool of mineral water, hot from the springs, and private baths of all descriptions. The big plunge had been emptied and scrubbed, and the hot water was pouring in, but would not be sufficiently cool to swim in for another day.

Many charming people were here, taking the course of baths, resting, or just stopping en route, as we were. One celebrity was presented to us, the youthful editor of “Jim Jam Jems,” Mr. Sam H. Clark, of Bismarck, North Dakota, and his attractive wife. There were other ladies in his party, all going to the park. They were attired in the costume of khaki breeches, puttees, and coats, looking very Western and comfortable.

We remarked that we were unfortunate, in never having seen a copy of “Jim Jam Jems.” “You surprise me; it is on sale at six hundred news-stands in New York City.” Feeling like mere worms, we expressed the hope of seeing it in San Francisco. On our arrival, we asked for it at the news-stand in one of the largest hotels. “We get it only about once in two months,” we were told. Later we found the September issue, which we read with interest. In the “Monthly Preamble” he says, “Fact is, this good old U. S. A. seems to have slipped its trolley, politically, industrially, and socially, and generally things be out of joint.” That seemed to be the tone of the whole publication. I do not know the particular significance of the name of his magazine; but if he ever decided to make a change I wonder if he would consider “The Knocker Club in Session.” Mr. Clark is a reformer in embryo, and his talents are unquestioned. Perhaps, in the broad-minded, open West, he will in time find something _con_structive to write about. Let us watch and see.

After a very jolly visit, all too short, we started for Livingston and Gardiner, the northern entrance to the park. The sky was dense with smoke, due to the forest fires in the north. In Oregon a town had been wiped out the day before. Our eyes smarted from the smoke; the mountains, now the foothills of the Rockies, were entirely obliterated, and, if this kept up, we could see nothing in the park. Cars were turning back, and the prospect was not encouraging. The road grew more steep and narrow, and we could hardly see a quarter of a mile ahead of us. It was like a real London fog--pea soup. The altitude was very high, and we began to feel dizzy. We were on roads that were just shelves cut in the sides of the mountains, with hardly room for two cars to pass and a good long tumble on the lower side. It was not pleasant! On a clear day perhaps, but not in a dense fog.

Passing through Livingston, you turn due south for fifty-five miles. At four o’clock we arrived at Gardiner, where we had a belated lunch at a restaurant, and found a collection of five weeks’ mail at the post-office. Joy!--and then more joy! We all wired home to anxious relatives of our arrival. The huge stone arch forms the gateway to the park. The officials, old army veterans, in uniform, stopped us and we paid $7.50 entrance fee for the car. There is no tax for people. We were questioned about firearms. None are allowed, and we had none.

XI

A WONDERLAND

As Joaquin Miller said of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, “Is any fifty miles of Mother Earth as fearful, or any part as fearful, as full of glory, as full of God?” That is the Yellowstone National Park!

So much has been written of its wonder and beauty that it is “carrying coals to Newcastle” for me to add any description. It beggars description! None of us had visited it before; so the experiences were doubly interesting, and these facts we had forgotten, if we had ever known them: In 1872, Congress made this a national park. It is sixty-two miles long and fifty-four miles wide, giving an area of 3348 square miles in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, and is under the supervision of the National Park Service of the Interior Department. The entire region is volcanic; you are impressed by a sense of nearness to Nature’s secret laboratories.

The park is open from June 20th to September 15th. It is estimated that sixty thousand visitors have enjoyed the splendors of the park this year (1919). We reached there August 20th, at the height of the tourist season. On entering, we drove five miles in a dense smoke along the Gardiner River to Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. There we spent our first night and held a “council of war.” If the smoke did not lift, we could see nothing and would have to wait. Of course, we intended to drive our car through the park! After looking the situation over and talking with other tourists, we decided to go in the Government cars, for three reasons: First, whoever drove could see nothing of the scenery--you had to keep your eye on the road every moment, as the ways were so steep, with hundreds of sharp curves; second, we were unaccustomed to the very high altitude, an average of eight thousand feet, all were feeling dizzy (one of the ladies had a severe nosebleed), and no “light-headed” driver was safe in handling a car on those roads; third, if you are familiar with the routes, or follow the Government cars and get their dust, all right; if not, you will get off the main roads in no time. The Government has very comfortable White cars, holding eleven and the driver. All the roads are officially inspected daily, and the drivers are expert. You buy a motor ticket for twenty-five dollars, and that ends your responsibility. You have unlimited time at the hotels, if you so desire; otherwise, the trip is made in three days, with ample time to see everything, and even to take side trips.

There were three hotels open this season--the Mammoth Hot Springs, Old Faithful, and the Grand Canyon. They are run exclusively on the American plan, at six dollars a day, with good food and every comfort. A private bath is two dollars extra; with two in a room, four dollars, or, if the bath adjoins two rooms, with two in each room, it is two dollars each, or the modest sum of eight dollars. We found that the tourists in the Government cars were cared for first in the dining-room and always had good rooms reserved for them. This is quite a consideration in the rush season. Thus with your motor ticket of twenty-five dollars, your full three days’ hotel bill at six dollars a day, including side trips, tips, etc., the park can be seen in absolute comfort for fifty dollars, with nothing to worry about. As we had been driving the car so steadily for six weeks, the relaxation was very acceptable. The three hotels are quite different. The Mammoth Hot Springs is a big barn of a place in appearance, lacking home atmosphere, but warms up a bit in the evening when dancing begins.