I saw something else on the horizon too. It started as a little black speck on the road, seeming to swerve now and then from one side to another. It emitted a strange noise that at first was scarcely to be heard, but increased until it reverberated indefinitely from the bare angular mountain ranges.

It was a motor-cycle!

An inexpressible feeling of sympathy and comradeship surged through me, as I realized that here was another fool starting to do what one fool had already almost done. I wondered vaguely whether he knew what he was doing.

We both stopped, dismounted, and looked at each other for a few moments before either spoke. The sight of another motor-cycle seemed to take both of us by surprise. The stranger, a young man of twenty-four or so, had an old twin-cylinder Excelsior that looked very much as if it had seen better days. I led off the conversation.

"Where do you reckon you're going on that?"

"New York."

"Ever done it before?"

"Nope."

"Insured?"

"Nope."

"Pleasure or business?"

"Both." Here he fumbled around a huge bruise on his forehead. "Leastways, that was the idea. I'm writing it up for the Adventure Magazine when I'm through"—and he added guardedly, "That is, if I don't kill meself with a few more headers like this."

"How'd you get that?"

"Oh, Boy, I came such a crash on a bit of oiled roadway back there by that salt-lake bed. Don't remember anything of it except being chucked clean over the grips about fifty. My Gad, it was some crash! I came round about half an hour after. Say, Boy, you look out for them ruts; ride plumb in the middle of the road, and you may miss 'em, 'cause they're filled in and blown over with sand. Jest the right width of your wheel, they are."

"Sure, I've made their acquaintance already; kind of keep a man fit, don't they? But, say, you've got many more like that coming between here and New York. Take my tip, old man. If you've got anyone depending on you for a living and you don't want to knock the 'X' and yourself to little pieces, you had better go back home right now and tootle up and down the Californian coast for a holiday. And if you still want to get to New York—well, all I can say is, there's a dem fine train service, and you'll find a depot right there in Ludlow."

"Don't you worry, Boy; I've done a heap of motor-cycling in my days and I guess I don't get scared at a header or two, and s'long as I can fix anything that happens along, I guess I'll git to Lil Ole Noo York before a couple of weeks is gone."

"Young man," said I in a fatherly tone, "you don't know what you're saying. You're talking blasphemy—sheer heresy. Your crash has turned your wits a little."

"Thanks, but I've made up my mind to go by road, and go by road I will."

"That's the spirit, but just a few more words of advice. Sell it and buy a Ford. Then you'll be able to take some one with you."

"I'm taking some one already, Boy. He's back at Ludlow. Shipped him on from Barstow, the road was so dog-gone bad and he got scared at the desert."

"What! You're taking him on the carrier?" I cried aghast.

"Sure enough. What's against it?"

I was speechless. His youth and innocence held me spellbound for a moment. Then I burst forth:

"Man, you're mad! Absolutely Mad! Here, c'mon, Lizzie, before it gets too dark and before this lunatic gets unsafe." I kicked her into a roar. "Cheerio, old man! Give my love to the Angels to-morrow!"

Then his open exhaust burst into a clatter and I saw him no more. I often thought about him, though, and wondered how, when, and where he ended up.

Next morning I shook the desert sand from my blanket for the last time. By hook or by crook I should be sailing through the streets of Los Angeles before nightfall. I judged I looked pretty fierce on the whole. I had no looking-glass, having left my suit-case to be shipped on back at Santa FÉ, but I had the best part of a week's growth on my chin and I had not known the joy of a wash for four days. My hair, my boots, my clothes, my everything, were saturated with sand and dust. My tunic, which in its earlier days had been a green tweed, was now white at the back, bleached almost colourless with the sun and then soaked with alkali dust. In the front and below the sleeves it maintained something approaching its original colour. My boots? Well, they had not been off for four days, and the right sole, which had been threatening revolution, had so many times nearly tripped me up by doubling underfoot, that I had removed it near the instep with my pen-knife!

And Lizzie was in no better condition. Externally she was a mass of string, wire, insulation-tape, mud, oil, and sand. Internally she was a bundle of rattles and strange noises. Everything was loose and worn; the sand had invaded her at every point and had multiplied wear a thousandfold. Latterly the tappet rods had had to be cleaned and adjusted over a sixteenth of an inch every day until there was no more adjustment possible. The valve rockers were worn half-way through, some more than that. One had worn right through until it had broken in the middle. I began to be afraid that the engine would not hold out even for the 200 odd miles to come. By handling her carefully and giving her ample oil, I hoped to "deliver the goods" and get across the remaining half of the great desert tract that borders on the Sierra Madre Range running parallel with the coast from north to south. Once across that range, everything, I told myself, would change abruptly, the roads, the scenery, and the climate.

Mile after mile of rock and sand went by with the sweating hours. Often little patches of oiled road appeared, stayed awhile, and then miraculously disappeared below the white, loose surface. Nearly always there were two ruts, beautifully sharp and well cut, sunk three or four inches below the rest of the surface, caused by the fierce rays of the midday sun converting the oiled surface into a plastic condition easily moulded by passing cars which, once given the lead, follow blindly in the others' "footsteps." Many a bad swerve and an occasional spill did I have when my front wheel found such as this. But the major portion of the road was just the bare, loose sand and gravel of the desert.

I had by now become so used to my own company that the sense of loneliness almost disappeared, and I felt as perfectly at ease here as anywhere else. I felt that the great wastes had a charm, nay, even a lure, that eclipsed all past sensations and gave a mental satisfaction that no other phase of Nature could ever reveal. I cannot describe the ineffable something which made me love the great solitude and the mighty spaces, but it is there nevertheless, and, like the greatest of passions, it gives extremes. After one has lived but a few days in the desert, either he loves it passionately or he loathes it. There is nothing in between.

On the right there lies the great "Death Valley" that stretches a hundred miles to the north between the Armagosa and the Paramint Mountains. Its name is suggestive of the many people who have miserably perished of thirst in its clutches. It is the remains of a long-since dried-up inland lake and parts of it are 150 feet below the level of the sea. There is nothing in it save bare rock and shifting alkali sand, with here and there a cactus or a little sage. The heat is tremendous and the thermometer sometimes rises to 140°. In all, not a pleasant place either to live in or to die. But there are those who in the search for gold live here for months at a stretch.

Confound it! There goes No. 1 cylinder again. Why doesn't she fire? Am I to start overhauling the engine in this terrible place? I stop to change a plug.... Nothing doing.... Try another.... Still no result. For ten minutes I tinker with red-hot tools. Gee! the blessed machine will be melting soon if we don't move quick. In disgust I go on again with only three cylinders working. Past memories crowd into my mind, but the eternal battle with the loose sand suffices to keep them out.

It was too bad, to start playing pranks like this within a few hours of the coast. The sand of the road absorbed most of the power I now had left and often I had to change down to bottom gear to get along at all. It was wonderful what a difference just that one cylinder made, and it was most annoying that it should happen just here, where the earth was nothing more than a confused mass of rocks and sand, and the sun stood vertically above in the sky. "Thank Heaven, I've some water left, if anything happens," thought I.

"What in the world is that thing?" I asked myself. Closer acquaintance proved it to be a motor lorry, dressed up as a caravan and minus a back axle—a most remarkable sight in most remarkable surroundings. From the numerous loop-tracks that swerved around it, it had evidently stood there many days. Its owner was lying underneath on his back.

"Pretty place to change a back axle, old man," I remarked intelligently.

"Yep. Not the kind o' thing a feller does for the fun of it, either," he retorted, scrambling out from his resting-place in the sand.

"Well, is there anything I can do for you, anyway? I don't quite like to see a chap stranded in a blankety-blank country like this on blankety-blank roads like these." I forget just the adjectives I used, but I know they were hardly of the drawing-room variety. Imagine my surprise when a feminine voice from inside chirped out:

"Yes, that's just about got 'em sized up! I've never heard such a mighty cute description of 'em."

Five days they had been there. The back axle had broken under the huge strain of dragging the load through the deep, loose sand. A passing car had taken it to San Bernardino to be repaired, and other passing cars had kept them well supplied with water. They expected to have the axle back the next day and then had nothing to fear. As I could do nothing for them, I propped Lizzie up against the side of the lorry and tried once more to persuade No. 1 cylinder to join hands with the rest.

After half an hour of useless toil, I bade farewell to the caravan and its occupants.

"Quite sure I can't do anything?"

"Plumb sure, thanks. Mebbe we shall be there before you, y'know,"—with a wicked twinkle in his eye.

Then followed hours and hours of ceaseless toil. We climbed hills and crossed great lake-beds that glistened white with a dazzling glare. In some of these there was nothing to be seen in the vast stretch of alkali deposit where once, thousands of years ago, rested the briny waters of lakes and inland seas—nothing, not even a plucky bush of sage-brush, clinging valiantly to its life-hold.

We came to Barstow, a growing settlement, a railway centre and with great alkali factories. Here, after nearly 100 miles' running, I had a substantial breakfast-lunch-dinner meal and filled my water-bag for the last time. We were nearing the end of the Mohave Desert.

Here the trail turns sharply to the south to "San Berdoo," the colloquial abbreviation of San Bernardino. At one time the trail had crossed the desert by a different route altogether, in places almost 100 miles from the railway line. So many souls had perished with the heat and lack of water—perchance through some breakdown or through losing their way—that later a new road was "constructed" following closely the track of the railway so that travellers by road need never be in difficulties for long. It is an unwritten law in any of the American deserts that anyone can hold up a train anywhere if he needs water or supplies or other help. It is willingly given, whether it be a freight train or the "California Limited" express from New York to San Francisco!

The San Gabriel Mountains now rose high on the horizon. They had but to be crossed, and then all our troubles would be over.

So I thought.

At Victorville, a growing town at the north base of the range, the desert had almost disappeared. Eucalyptus trees became strangely intermixed with cactus trees, and the aroma of their long, grey-green leaves filled the air with a new sensation. It was the approach of civilization once again.

And then followed the long, winding climb up to the Cajon Pass. In the thick sand and with only three cylinders, it was hard work and slow work. I thought we should never get to the top. Looking back, I beheld a wonderful panorama of desert plain, and a glistening sea of sand; looking forward, I saw just a gap in the great black wall and a rocky pathway winding through it.

Are we never going to reach the summit? We must have climbed nearly a mile high already, I argued with myself, when, of a sudden, the twisting, rocky trail ceased to exist. It vanished like magic, and instead there was before us a magnificent, broad highway of smooth, flat concrete that made me yell with delight. It was wonderful. I laughed and sang with childish glee to think that after 4,000 miles of mud and sand and soil and rock and rut and unspeakable goat-track, I was at last on a concrete road once again, with a surface like a billiard table. I swerved madly from side to side to make sure those two haunting ruts had really disappeared, and laughed again when I found I was not thrown off. It was just glorious.

One more turn, and a great valley lay at my feet. It was green with grass and the mountain sides were clothed in pine trees. Pine trees! How beautiful they looked! It was surely a dream, a vision, a trick of the imagination. There was a long, winding gradient down into the valley. I shut the engine off and we coasted down the smooth concrete without even a whisper or a jar of any kind. It was like a sudden entry into heaven—and almost as silent.

There were now seventy miles of concrete leading between avenues of eucalyptus and groves of orange trees into Los Angeles. Further, the road was almost perfectly flat, although bordered by the San Gabriel range, and, with a few right-angle bends here and there, cut straight across from east to west, with hardly a swerve from the straight line.

Truly it was like a new world, this fruit garden of California. For miles unbroken save by little avenues, one passed row upon row of orange trees laid out in perfect symmetry and exactitude in the rich flat soil. A narrow ditch, dug parallel with each row and having small branches to each individual tree, communicated with larger ditches along which flowed a constant stream of fresh water led from the mountain sides.

Interspersed would be groves of prunes, peaches, and apples, then a plantation of water-melons and cantaloupes of all shapes and sizes.

And then, as if to snatch away the enjoyment of all these pleasant things, a great clatter arose from the engine. Something had broken at last, and it seemed that the whole was a revolving mass of loose pieces all knocking up against each other. Then, before I had been able to slow down—it all happened in a few seconds—there was a metallic thud, the back wheel locked dead, and the machine dry-skidded itself to rest. Once again Fate had decreed against me, angry that I should have got so far in spite of all her efforts.

Well, well! There was plenty of time to spare now; no need to hurry. I sat down on the grass at the roadside in the shade of an orange tree, ate two oranges—from the tool-box—and smoked a pipe. Feeling refreshed in every sense, I then proceeded to take the engine to pieces.

No. 1 piston had broken in fragments and a large piece had jammed between the big end of one of the connecting rods and the crank-case. It was strange that it had not punched a hole through it.

It was far too long a job to take off the sump at the roadside—it would have meant taking the whole engine out of the frame—nearly a day's work—so I removed as many of the pieces of piston as I could get at through the inspection window. The piston-head was floating loose like a flat disc above the small end. This I removed and packed the two halves of the broken gudgeon pin apart, so as to guide the small end up and down in the cylinder. It was impossible to remove the connecting rod entirely, even with the cylinder off, without removing the whole engine from the frame and taking off the sump.

In a couple of hours I was going again, but very very gingerly, lest another piece of piston should be caught up and cause another jamb. The noise of the rattle too was terrific, and I could hear the warning of passing cars (of which there were now several) only when they were right behind me. Sometimes it would get suddenly worse and a further disrupture would appear imminent, and then it would go suddenly back again to its normal. Thus we toiled for thirty miles, at an average speed of twelve miles an hour.

At Ontario—the towns were as numerous as they were prosperous—I feared another and final episode. A Ford car that was passing slowed down to offer me assistance, and putting Lizzie in "free engine" I hung on to his hoodstays with my right arm as a tow-rope. This lasted for ten miles, but I could stand it no longer; my arms were stiff and aching with the uneven strain. I thanked my benefactor and let go.

The remaining twenty miles into Los Angeles were endured and accomplished under our own power at about eight miles an hour. The attention I attracted was considerable. Hundreds upon hundreds of cars, buses, and motor-cycles passed, hurrying here and there, their tyres making a continuous low hum on the concrete road. Luxury, wealth, and happiness abounded on every hand. No greater antithesis to the aching void of the desert back behind the mountains could be imagined.

Every house was a picture, a model of cleanliness and homeliness. The art of building bungalows is reduced in California to the irreducible. It is amazing to see the variety of design and the characteristic beauty of them all. They made the modern English bungalows of my memory seem like enlarged dog-kennels by comparison.

At five o'clock in the afternoon we rattled into Los Angeles, the New York of the Far West. Lizzie's clatter rose above the noise of the trolley cars that thronged the busy streets. Here at last was the long-sought-for goal—the goal that for nearly three months had urged me westward! And my steed? Poor Lizzie, she cried aloud for a respite from the long, weary journey!

Had I known where the Henderson Agency was I could not have found my way there quicker. It seemed as if Lizzie's instincts had taken her there just as a lost cat, transported hundreds of miles from home, slowly, painfully and perseveringly drags its tired body back again.

A quarter of an hour later I was sailing in a side-car towards the "Clark Hotel." That was where my hotel at Santa FÉ had recommended me to go and had forwarded my baggage.

We drew up at the door of a palatial establishment—the "posh" hotel of Los Angeles. Once again, after many a long day, my knees began to quake. Brushing by the magnificent door-porter, I swung into the luxurious lounge. Afternoon tea was just finishing. I strolled across to the reception desk, trying hard to maintain an air of complete innocence as regards my personal appearance. I endeavoured to assume an attitude of perfect congruity with my surroundings.

To say the least, I was lamentably unsuccessful! Little groups of people chatting together stopped and gazed at the dishevelled intruder. Imperfectly disguised smirks were evident on all sides. Pages, bell-boys, and porters quickly brought their grinning faces to attention as I glowered upon them in turn. At last I reached the desk.

"You've got some baggage for me, I believe—a couple of grips—sent from the 'Montezuma' at Santa FÉ. Shepherd is my name."

Meanwhile the manager appeared on the scene. Resting himself with both hands on the desk as if to steady himself against any possible shock that he might receive from the contemplation of so strange a spectacle, he gazed at me in silence. Then, below his breath, he found words to convey his astonishment:

"My Gad!" he said, and paused deliberately. Then he continued explosively, "I've seen some sunburnt faces in my time, but never, never, never have I seen a man anywhere with a face like yours!"

"It's nice of you to say so," I retorted.

"Heavens, man!" he continued, ignoring the interruption, "your hair's nearly white and your chest is nearly black. Where in hell have you been?"

"Oh, I didn't stay there long," I replied, "no longer than was necessary to get here from New York."

"New York!" (I was quite expecting him to say "Whar's that?" but evidently its existence was known in well-informed circles in Los Angeles). "Have you walked it or swum it or what?"

"Only motor-cycled it, Old Bean!"

"Well, now, if that's not.... Here; I'll give you your key. Go and have a good bath right now."

I thanked him. A porter had got my bags and stood waiting. His face was the essence of staid immobility when I looked at him. Together we went in the elevator to the nth floor. Eager to see what I really did look like, my first indulgence was to look at myself in the glass, a thing I had not done for many a day.

It certainly was a shock. I could barely recognize myself. I really was the most remarkable creature I had ever seen. I could not refrain from bursting into uncontrollable laughter. The hitherto straight-faced porter did likewise, and we both felt the better for it.

A hot bath! Wonder of wonders! I tumbled into it and the past was forgotten in the inexpressible ecstasy of the present.