Across the Continent 
 
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 Lincoln Highway 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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OF The 
 
 x^'vusiry onum,s 
 
Lincoln Highway near Soda Springs, Cal. 
 
ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 BY 
 
 THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 
 
 By 
 
 EFFIE PRICE GLADDING 
 (Mrs. Thomas S. Gladding) 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 New York 
 BRENTANO’S 
 1915 
 
Copyright , 1915, 
 
 BY 
 
 Effie Pbice Gbadbikc 
 
 Manufactured by 
 Rowland & Ives 
 225 Fifth Avenue 
 New York 
 

 
 Dedicated to 
 
 Lovers of the open road and the flying wheel. 
 
 ‘‘My country, ’tis of thee, 
 Sweet land of liberty, 
 
 Of thee I sing.’’ 
 
 
 8670 1 7 
 

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CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction . 
 Chapter I 
 Chapter II 
 Chapter III 
 Chapter IV 
 Chapter V 
 Chapter VI 
 Chapter VII g 
 Chapter VIII 
 Chapter IX 
 Chapter X 
 Chapter XI 
 Chapter XII . 
 Chapter XIII . 
 
 page 
 
 7 
 
 11 
 
 22 
 
 37 
 
 57 
 
 76 
 
 92 
 
 111 
 
 142 
 
 169 
 
 191 
 
 210 
 
 227 
 
 257 
 

 
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INTRODUCTION 
 
 vu 
 
 A FOREWORD THAT IS A 
 RETROSPECT 
 
 Feom the Pacific to the Atlantic by the Lincoln 
 Highway, with California and the Virginias and 
 Maryland thrown in for good measure! What a 
 tour it has been! As we think back over its miles 
 we recall the noble pines and the towering Sequoias 
 of the high Sierras of California; the flashing wa- 
 ter-falls of the Yosemite, so green as to be called 
 Vernal, so white as to be called Bridal Veil; the 
 orchards of the prune, the cherry, the walnut, the 
 olive, the almond, the fig, the orange, and the lemon, 
 tilled like a garden, watered by the hoarded and 
 guarded streams from the everlasting hills ; and the 
 rich valleys of grain, rrnming up to the hillsides and 
 dotted by live oak trees. We recall miles of vine- 
 yard under perfect cultivation. We see again the 
 blue of the Pacific and the green of the forest ce- 
 dars and cypresses. High Lake Tahoe spreads 
 
VUl 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 before us, with its southern fringe of emerald 
 meadows and forest pines, and its encircling guard- 
 ians, lofty and snow-capped. The high, grey-green 
 deserts of Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming stretch be- 
 fore us once more, and we can smell the clean, pun- 
 gent sage brush. We are not lonely, for life is all 
 about us. The California quail and blue- jay, the 
 eagle, the ground squirrel, the gopher, the coyote, 
 the antelope, the rattlesnake, the big ring snake, 
 the wild horse of the plains, the jack rabbit, the 
 meadow lark, the killdeer, the redwinged blackbird, 
 the sparrow hawk, the thrush, the redheaded wood- 
 pecker, the grey dove, all have been our friends and 
 companions as we have gone along. We have seen 
 them in their native plains and forests and from 
 the safe vantage point of the front seat of oiu* 
 motor car. 
 
 The lofty peaks of the Rockies have towered be- 
 fore us in a long, unbroken chain as we have looked 
 at them from the alfalfa fields of Colorado. 
 
 We have seen the bread and the cornbread of a 
 nation growing on the rolling prairies of Nebraska, 
 Iowa, and Illinois. We have crossed the green, 
 pastoral stretches of Indiana and Ohio and Penn- 
 sylvania. The red roads of Virginia, winding 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 IX 
 
 among her laden orchards of apples and peaches 
 and pears and her lush forests of oak and pine; 
 the yellow roads of Maryland, passing through her 
 fertile fields and winding in and out among the 
 thousand water ways of her coast line, all come be- 
 fore us. These are precious possessions of expe- 
 rience and memory, the choice, intimate knowledge 
 to which the motorist alone can attain. 
 
 The Friends of the Open Road are ours; the 
 homesteader in his white canopied prairie schooner, 
 the cattleman on his pony, the passing fellow mo- 
 torist, the ranchman at his farmhouse door, the 
 country inn-keeper hospitably speeding us on our 
 way. 
 
 We have a new conception of our great country; 
 her vastness, her varied scenery, her prosperity, 
 her happiness, her boundless resources, her im- 
 mense possibilities, her kindness and hopefulness. 
 We are bound to her by a thousand new ties of ac- 
 quaintance, of association, and of pride. 
 
 The Lincoln Highway is already what it is in- 
 tended to be, a golden road of pleasure and use- 
 fulness, fitly dedicated, and destined to inspire 4 
 great patriotism and to honour a great patriot. 
 October, 1914. 
 
ACROSS THE CONTINENT BY 
 THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 With what a strange thrill I look out from my 
 stateroom window, early one April morning, and 
 catch a glimpse of the flashing light on one of the 
 green promontories of the Golden Gate! I dress 
 hurriedly and run out to find that a light is flaming 
 on the other promontory, and that we are entering 
 the great Bay of San Francisco. It has taken a 
 long preparation to give me the feeling of pride and 
 joy and wonder with which I come through the 
 Golden Gate to he in my own country once more. 
 A year of touring in Europe, nearly a year of travel 
 in the Orient, six months in Australia and New 
 Zealand, and after that three months in Honolulu; 
 all this has given me the backgroimd for the unique 
 sensation with which I see the two lights on the long 
 
12 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 green promontories of the Golden Gate stretching 
 out into the Pacific. Our ship moves steadily on, 
 past Alcatraz Island with its long building on its 
 rocky height, making it look like a big Atlantic 
 liner built high amidships. There are the green 
 heights of the Presidio and the suburbs of the city 
 of San Francisco. On the left in the distance is 
 Yerba Buena Island. Far ahead of us, across the 
 width of the Bay, are the distant outlines of Oak- 
 land and Berkeley. Later I am to stand on the 
 hilly campus of the University of California and 
 look straight across the Bay through the Golden 
 Gate which we have just entered. The tall build- 
 ings of San Francisco begin to arise and we are 
 landed in the streets of the new city. What a mar- 
 vel it is ! In the ten days that we were there I must 
 say that still the wonder grew that a city could have 
 risen in nine short years from shock, and flood, and 
 fire, to be the solid, imposing structure of stone and 
 brick, with wide bright streets and impressive 
 plazas, that San Francisco now is. In the placing 
 of its statues at dramatic points on the streets and 
 cross streets, it reminds one of a French city. The 
 new city has fine open spaces, with streets stretch- 
 ing in all directions from these plazas. There 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 13 
 
 are many striking groups of statuary; among them 
 one whose inscriptions reads: 
 
 DEDICATED TO MECHANICS 
 BY 
 
 JAMES MERVYN DONAHUE IN MEMORY OF HIS 
 FATHER^ PETER DONAHUE 
 
 The most striking figure in this group, one of five 
 workmen cutting a hole through a sheet of steel, is 
 the figure of the old man who superintends the 
 driving of the bolt through the sheet, while four 
 stalwart young men throw their weight upon the 
 lever. Here is not only stalwart youth and brawn, 
 but also the judgment and steadiness of mature 
 age. The older man has a good head, and adds a 
 moral balance to the whole group. It is a fine mem- 
 orial, not only to the man whose memory it hon- 
 ours, but also to a host of mechanics and working 
 men who do their plain duty every day. 
 
 The most attractive thing about the San Fran- 
 cisco residences is the fine view of the Bay that 
 many of them have. It is the business portion of the 
 city that makes the striking impression upon the 
 stranger. The new Masonic Building, with its 
 
14 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 massive cornice, reminding one of the Town Hall 
 in the old fighting town of Perugia, Italy; the tow- 
 ering buttresses of the Hotel St. Francis; the no- 
 ble masses of the business blocks; the green rect- 
 angle of the civic center where the city’s functions 
 are held in the open air ; — all are impressive. In all 
 of the California cities, one finds no better dressed 
 people and no more cosmopolitan people in ap- 
 pearance than are to be seen on the San Francisco 
 streets. It is more nearly a great city in its spirit 
 and atmosphere than any other metropolis of the 
 State. 
 
 The drive through the Golden Gate Park is in- 
 teresting because of the blooming shrubs, and the 
 lovely foliage. I have never before seen my favor- 
 ite golden broom blooming in any part of the 
 United States. Here it grows luxuriantly. The 
 Presidio, the site of the military post, is a very 
 beautiful park, and is well worth seeing. 
 
 A memorable excursion is one across the Bay to 
 Berkeley, the seat of the State University. In the 
 past fifteen or twenty years the University has 
 grown from a somewhat motley collection of old 
 brick buildings into a noble assemblage of harmo- 
 nious stone buildings with long lines of much archi- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 15 
 
 tectural impressiveness. No one can see the Uni- 
 versity of California without feeling that here is a 
 great institution against the background of a great 
 State. Two buildings which I particularly like are 
 the School of Mines, built by Mrs. Phoebe Hearst 
 as a memorial to her husband, and the beautiful li- 
 brary. While the two buildings are very different 
 in type, each is noble and appropriate for its par- 
 ticular uses. There are still a few of the original 
 buildings standing, old-fashioned and lonely. 
 Doubtless they will be removed in time and more 
 fitting structures will take their place. The situa- 
 tion of the campus is superb. It lies on a group of 
 green foothills, the buildings rising from various 
 knolls. You literally go up to the halls of learning. 
 The whole campus and the little university city at 
 its foot are dominated by an enormous white C out- 
 lined on the green hills far above. It is a stiff climb 
 to that C, hut it is a favorite walk for ambitious 
 students. They tell me that occasionally students 
 come up from Leland Stanford University and in 
 teasing rivalry paint over the C at the dead hour 
 of night. The University is rich in beautiful situa- 
 tions on the campus for out-of-door functions. 
 Nothing could be lovelier than Strawberry Canyon, 
 
16 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 a green valley with immemorial live oaks scattered 
 here and there; and with clumps of shrubbery be- 
 hind whose greenness musicians can conceal them- 
 selves. We saw the annual masque given by four 
 hundred University women in honour of Mrs, 
 Phoebe Hearst. I carry in memory a lovely vision 
 of dancing wood nymphs, of living flowers, of soft 
 twilight colors, streaming across the greensward; 
 and of a particular wood nymph, the very spirit of 
 the Spring, who played about in irresponsible hap- 
 piness, all in soft wood browns and pinks and 
 greens. The Greek Theatre is a noble monument to 
 Mr. William Randolph Hearst, its donor. A great 
 audience there is a fine sight; so symmetrical is the 
 amphitheatre that it is hard to realize how many 
 thousands of people are sitting in the circle of its 
 stone tiers. Behind the topmost tier runs a wall 
 covered with blooming roses, while back of this 
 wall hang the drooping tassels of tall eucalyptus 
 trees. Nothing could be more fitting as a theatre 
 for music and for all the noblest and most dignified 
 functions of a great institution. 
 
 We did not start on our long journey, which was 
 to mount up to 8,600 miles in distance, until the 
 21st of April. Before that we had a delightful 
 
BX THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 17 
 
 northern trip of one hundred and twenty miles in 
 a friend’s motor car ; crossing the ferry and driving 
 through Petaluma, Sonoma Valley, and Santa 
 Rosa, on to Ukiah. Coming through Petaluma our 
 host told us that we were in “Henville.” I had sup- 
 posed that chickens would do well anywhere in 
 sunny California, but not so. There are districts 
 where the fog gets into the throats of the fowls and 
 kills them. Sonoma County is particularly adapt- 
 ed for chicken raising and there are hundreds of 
 successful chicken growers in this region. 
 
 As we came through Santa Rosa, we saw the 
 modest home and the office and gardens of Luther 
 Burbank. 
 
 Beyond Santa Rosa we entered what our host 
 called the Switzerland of California. The roads 
 are only ordinary country roads and very hilly at 
 that, but the rolling green fields and glimpses of 
 distant hills, with heavy forests here and there, are 
 very beautiful. I saw for the first time in all its 
 spring glory the glowing California poppy. Great 
 masses of bright orange yellow were painted 
 against the lush green of the thick hillside grass; 
 masses that fairly radiated light. Alongside these 
 patches of flaming yellow were other patches of 
 
18 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 the deep blue lupine. Some great painter should 
 immortalize the spring fields of California. The 
 wonderful greenness of the grass, the glowing 
 masses of yellow, and the deep gentian blue of the 
 lupine would rank with the coloring of McWhirt- 
 er’s “Tyrol in Springtime.” California in the spring 
 is an ideal State in which to motor. We were sorry 
 that we could not accept our host’s invitation to 
 motor still farther north into Lake County, a 
 county of rough roads but fine scenery. 
 
 Northern California has not yet been developed 
 or exploited for tourists as has the southern part 
 of the State, but there is beautiful scenery in 
 all the counties north of San Francisco. As we 
 drove through Sonoma (Moon) Valley, we saw 
 the green slopes of Jack London’s ranch, not many 
 miles away. Jack London’s recent book, “The 
 Valley of the Moon,” describes the scenery of this 
 region. 
 
 Back of Vallejo, reached by ferry from San 
 Francisco, lies the lovely Napa Valley, filled with 
 fruit ranches. Its southern end is narrow, but as 
 one drives farther north it widens out into a broad 
 green expanse of orderly fruit farms and pleasant 
 
BY, THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY, 19 
 
 homes, dominated by green hills on either side. 
 Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley were the first of 
 many enchanting valleys which we saw in Califor- 
 nia. As I look back on ovlt long drive, it seems to 
 me now that in California you are always either 
 climbing a mountain slope or descending into a 
 green valley fianked by ranges of hills. Calistoga, 
 at the northern end of Napa Valley, has interesting 
 literary associations. It was on the slope of Calis- 
 toga Mountain that Robert Louis Stevenson spent 
 his honeymoon and had the experience of which we 
 read to-day in “The Silverado Squatters.” 
 
 San Francisco is a pleasure-loving town. When 
 its people are not eating in public places to the 
 soimd of music, they are likely to be amusing them- 
 selves in public places. The moving picture, the 
 theatre, the vaudeville, all flourish in this big, gay, 
 rushing city. The merchants of San Francisco 
 have shown great courage and daring in the erec- 
 tion of their big buildings almost immediately on 
 the stones and ashes of the old ones. They have 
 done all this on borrowed money and loaded them- 
 selves with heavy mortgages, trusting to the future 
 and to fat years to pay off their indebtedness. They 
 
20 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 have done an heroic work in a solid, impressive 
 way, and deserve all the business that can possibly 
 come to them. 
 
 In San Francisco I saw for the first time that 
 great California institution, the cafeteria. They 
 pronounce this word in California with the accent 
 on the “i.” To a traveler it seems as if all San 
 Francisco must take its meals in these well equipped 
 and perfectly ordered restaurants. You enter at 
 one side of the room, taking up napkin, tray, knife, 
 fork, and spoons from carefully arranged piles as 
 you pass along a narrow aisle outlined by a railing. 
 Next comes a counter steaming with trays of hot 
 food, and a second coimter follows with rows of 
 salads and fruits on ice. After one’s choice is made, 
 the tray is inspected and the pay-check estimated 
 and placed on the tray by a cashier. You are then 
 free to choose your table in the; big room and to 
 turn over your tray to one of the few waiters in at- 
 tendance. You leave on the opposite side of the 
 room, passing a second cashier and paying the 
 amount of your check. 
 
 It is a great game, this of choosing one’s food 
 by looking it over as it stands piping hot or ice 
 cold, in its appointed place. The attendants are 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 21 
 
 evidently accustomed to the weakness of human 
 nature, bewildered by so overwhelming aij array 
 of viands. They keep calling out the merits of 
 various dishes as the slow procession passes. “Have 
 some broiled ham? It’s very nice this morning.” 
 “Try the bacon. It’s specially good to-day.” 
 
 California people are much given to light house- 
 keeping and to taking their meals in cafeterias and 
 other restaurants. Doubtless this fashion may have 
 been inaugurated by the fact that an ever increas- 
 ing tourist population, living in hotels and lodg- 
 ings, must be taken care of. But many of the Cali- 
 fornians themselves are accustomed to reduce the 
 cares of house-keeping to the minimum, and to take 
 almost all their meals away from their own homes. 
 The servant question is a serious one in California; 
 and this type of co-operative house-keeping seems 
 to commend itself to hosts of people. We enjoyed 
 it as pilgrims and travelers, but one would scarcely 
 wish to have so large a part of the family life hab- 
 itually lived in public places. 
 
22 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 In the heart of San Francisco stands a tall, slen- 
 der iron pillar, with a bell hanging from its down- 
 turned top, like a lily drooping on its stalk. This 
 bell is a northern guide post of the famous El 
 Camino Real, the old highway of the Spanish monks 
 and monasteries on which still stand the ruins of the 
 ancient Mission churches and cloisters. We pur- 
 pose to drive south the entire length of the six hun- 
 dred miles of El Camino Real; and then turning 
 northward to cross the mountain backbone of the 
 State of California, and to come up through the 
 vast and fertile stretches of its western valleys, 
 meeting the Lincoln Highway at the town of 
 Stockton. 
 
 It is the morning of the 21st of April when we 
 swing around the graceful bell, run along Market 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 23 
 
 Street to the Masonic Temple, turn left into Mis- 
 sion Road, and from Mission Road come again 
 into El Camino Real. We first pass through the 
 usual fringe of cheap houses, road saloons, and small 
 groceries that surrounds a great city. Then comes 
 a group of the city’s cemeteries, “Cypress Grove,” 
 “Home of Peace,” and others. We have a bumpy 
 road in leaving the city, followed by a fine stretch 
 of smooth, beautiful cement highway. On through 
 rolling green country we drive, and into the suburb 
 of Burlingame with its vine covered and rose em- 
 bowered bungalows, and its houses of brown shin- 
 gle and of stucco. The finer places sit far back from 
 the road in aristocratic privacy, with big, grassy 
 parks shaded by noble trees in front, and with the 
 green foothills as a background. 
 
 At San Mateo, a town with the usual shaven and 
 parked immaculateness of highclass suburbs, we 
 have luncheon in a simple little pastry shop. The 
 woman who gaily serves us with excellent ham 
 sandwiches, cake, and coffee, tells us that she 
 is from Alsace-Lorraine. She and her husband 
 have found their way to California. From San 
 Mateo we drive to Palo Alto, where we spend some 
 time in visiting Leland Stanford University. The 
 
24 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 University buildings of yellow sandstone with their 
 warm red tiled roofs look extremely well in the 
 southern sun. Here are no hills and inequalities. 
 All the buildings stand on perfectly level ground, 
 the situation well suited to the long colonnades and 
 the level lines of the buildings themselves. It is 
 worth the traveler’s while to walk through the long 
 cloisters and to visit the rich and beautiful church, 
 whose restoration from the ravages of the earth- 
 quake is about completed. With its tiling and 
 mosaic work, its striking mottoes upon the walls, 
 and its fine windows, it is very like an Italian 
 church. 
 
 The town of Palo Alto is a pretty little settle- 
 ment, depending upon the University for its life. 
 
 From Palo Alto we drive on into the Santa Clara 
 Valley. We are too late to see the fruit trees in 
 bloom, a unique sight; but the valley stretches be- 
 fore us in all its exquisite greenness and freshness 
 after the spring rains. Miles of fruit trees, as care- 
 fully pruned and weeded and as orderly in every 
 detail as a garden, are on every side of us. Prune 
 trees, cherry trees, and apricot trees; there are 
 thousands of them, in a most beautiful state of 
 cultivation and fruitfulness. No Easterner who 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 25 
 
 has seen only the somewhat untidy and carelessly 
 cultivated orchards of the East can imagine the ex- 
 quisite order and detailed cultivation of the Cali- 
 fornia fruit orchards. We saw miles of such or- 
 chards always in the same perfect condition. Not 
 a leaf, not a branch, not a weed is left in these or- 
 chards. They are plowed and harrowed, sprayed 
 and pruned, down to the last corner of every or- 
 chard, and the last branch of every tree. 
 
 Through the clean aisles, between the green rows, 
 run the channels for the precious water that has 
 traveled from the mountains to the plains to turn 
 tens of thousands of acres into a fair and fruitful 
 garden. 
 
 The Santa Clara Valley is one of the loveliest 
 valleys of all California, and indeed of all the world. 
 Set amid its orchards are tasteful houses and 
 bungalows, commodious and architecturally pleas- 
 ing; very diiferent from the box-like farmhouses 
 of the Middle West and the East. On either side 
 rise high green hills. It is a picture of beauty 
 wherever one looks. 
 
 At Santa Clara, on our way to San Jose, we stop 
 to see the Santa Clara Mission, just at the edge of 
 the town. All that remains of the first Mission is 
 
26 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 enclosed within a wall, the new church and the flour- 
 ishing new school standing next to the enclosure. 
 
 In the middle of the valley is the city of San 
 Jose, an active, bustling town, full of life and busi- 
 ness. We spent a pleasant day at the Hotel Ven- 
 dome, an old-fashioned and delightful hostel, sur- 
 rounded by a park of fine trees and flowering 
 shrubs. The Vendome is a good place in which to 
 rest and bask in the sunshine. 
 
 When we next motor through the Santa Clara 
 Valley, we shall visit the New Almaden quicksil- 
 ver mine, twelve miles from San Jose, and com- 
 manding from its slopes a wondrous view of the 
 valley and the Garden City, as San Jose is called. 
 And there is the interesting trip from San Jose to 
 Mt. Hamilton and the Lick Observatory. One can 
 motor by a good road to the summit of the moun- 
 tain, 4,209 feet above sea level, and spend the night 
 at the hotel below on the mountain slope. 
 
 Leaving San Jose, we were more and more 
 charmed with the valley as we drove along through 
 orderly orchards and past tasteful bungalows. This 
 was the California of laden orchards, of roses and 
 climbing geraniums, of green hills rising beyond 
 the valleys, of which we had read. As we ap- 
 
THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY^ 27 
 
 preached the foot hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains 
 we looked back and saw the green valley with its 
 ranks of trees unrolled below us. Passing through 
 the little town of Los Gatos (The Cats), we began 
 to climb. As we turned a curve on the winding 
 mountain road, the green expanses of the Happy 
 Valley were lost to view. We were coming now 
 into the region of immense pine trees and of the 
 coast redwoods, the Sequoia sempervirens. The 
 road was fair but very winding, requiring close at- 
 tention. We crossed singing brooks and passed 
 wayside farms high in the hills, with their little 
 patches of orchard and grain. We saw a big sign- 
 board indicating the two-mile road to the Monte- 
 zuma Ranch School for hoys, and shortly after 
 were at the top of the grade. Then came the de- 
 scent, the road still winding in and out among the 
 forests. At the Hotel de Redwood, a simple hostel 
 for summer sojourners from the valleys, we saw 
 a magnificent clump of redwoods, around which had 
 been built a rustic seat. At the foot of the hill we 
 turned left instead of right, thus omitting from om* 
 itinerary the town of Santa Cruz and the redwoods 
 of the Big Basin. We hope to see this noble group 
 of trees sometime in the future. We took lunch- 
 
28 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 eon in a little cafe at Watsonville. When I asked 
 the young German waiter for steamed clams he 
 said, “Oh! you mean dem big fellers!” From 
 Watsonville, a bright little town, we drove on to- 
 ward Salinas, making a detour which took us around 
 the town instead of directly through it. We were 
 crossing the green plains of the Salinas Valley, and 
 before us rose the dark wooded heights of the fa- 
 mous Monterey Peninsula. On through the town 
 of Monterey to Pacific Grove, a mile beyond, and 
 we were soon resting in an ideal bungalow watched 
 over by two tall pines. What a memorable week 
 we spent at “Woodwardia”! A quarter of a mile 
 to our right was the sea, whose sound came up to 
 us plainly on still nights. Less than a quarter of 
 a mile to our left were the forest and the beginning 
 of the Seventeen Mile Drive. We took the drive 
 once and again, paying the seventy-five cent en- 
 trance fee at the gate of the Pacific Improvement 
 Company’s domain, thus becoming free to wander 
 about in the great wooded territory of the Peninsu- 
 la. We took luncheon at the picturesque Pebble 
 Lodge, where we had soup served in shining abalone 
 shells, and where the electric lights were shaded by 
 these shells. We halted in leisurely fashion along 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY, 29 
 
 the Drive to climb over the rocks and to scramble 
 up the high dunes, with their riot of flowering beach 
 peas. They were ideal places to sit and dream with 
 the blue sea before one and the dark forest behind. 
 We photographed the wind-swept cypress trees, 
 beaten and twisted into witchlike shapes by the 
 free Pacific breezes. We watched the seals, lazily 
 basking in the sun on the rocks off shore. We vis- 
 ited the picturesque village of Carmel, where ar- 
 tists and writers consort. We selected, under the 
 spell of all this beauty, numerous sites for bunga- 
 lows on exquisite Carmel Bay, where one might en- 
 joy forever and a day the fascination of the sea 
 and the spell of the pine forests. 
 
 We visited the Carmel Mission, now standing 
 lonely and silent in the midst of green fields. A few 
 of the old pear trees planted by the Mission fath- 
 ers still maintain a gnarled and aged existence in 
 an orchard across the road from the church. The 
 church is a simple structure with an outside flight 
 of adobe steps, such as one sees in Italian houses, 
 running up against the wall to the bell tower. At 
 the left of the altar are the graves of three priests, 
 one being that of Father Junipero Serra, the 
 founder of many of the Missions, the devoted Span- 
 
30 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 ish priest and statesman who more than once walked 
 the entire length of six hundred miles along which 
 his Missions were planted. A wall pulpit stands out 
 from the right wall of the church. The most touch- 
 ing thing in the empty, dusty, neglected little place 
 is a partly obliterated Spanish inscription on the 
 wall of the small room to the left of the main body 
 of the church. It is said to have been painted there 
 by Father Serra himself, and reads, being trans- 
 lated: “Oh, Heart of Jesus, always shining and 
 burning, illumine mine with Thy warmth and 
 light.” 
 
 A memorable excursion was to Point Lobos be- 
 yond Carmel village, a rocky promontory running 
 out like a wedge-shaped plateau into the sea. One 
 approaches the sea across exquisite green, turfy 
 spaces, shaded by pine trees, to find the point of 
 the wedge far above the water, cut by rocky and 
 awesome gashes into which the waves run with 
 a long rush and against whose walls they boom con- 
 tinually. The quiet woods of Point Lobos do 
 not prepare one for the magnificence of its out- 
 look and the wonderful sight of its great rocks ris- 
 ing ruggedly and precipitously far above the wa- 
 ter. I have seen the entire three hundred miles of 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 31 
 
 the French and Italian Riviera, having motored all 
 along that enchanting coast; and I am free to say 
 that Point Lobos is as fine a bit of scenery as one 
 will find, not only on the Pacific Coast but along 
 the Mediterranean shore. 
 
 Point Lobos was purchased a number of years 
 ago by a Pacific Grove gentleman who had an eye 
 for its rare beauty and grandeur, and who has built 
 for himself a modest home on a green meadow at 
 the entrance to the promontory. A small admis- 
 sion fee is charged for the Point, largely to exclude 
 those who in former days, when the Point was free 
 to excursionists, abused this privilege. 
 
 The owner has established on a little cove a short 
 distance from his house an abalone canning factory. 
 Here the Japanese and other divers bring their boat 
 loads of this delicious shellfish. Monterey Bay is 
 the home of the abalone and it has been so ruthlessly 
 fished for that new laws have had to be made to 
 protect it. The big, soft creature, as large as a tea 
 plate, fastens itself to rocks and other surfaces, its 
 one shell protecting it from above. The diver slips 
 under it his iron spatula, and by a quick and 
 skillful twist detaches it from its firm anchorage. 
 Abalone soup has a delicate flavor, really superior 
 
32 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 to clam soup. Both the exterior and the lining of 
 the abalone shell have most exquisite coloring and 
 are capable of a high polish. In the lining of the 
 shell there is often found the beautiful blister or 
 abalone pearl, formed by the same process as the 
 oyster pearl, the animal throwing out a secretion 
 at the point where it is irritated. The result is a 
 blister on the smooth lining of the shell which when 
 cut out and polished shows beautiful coloring, rang- 
 ing from satiny yellow to changing greens. We 
 spent an horn* in wandering about the canning fac- 
 tory, looking over heaps of cast-off shells, admiring 
 their beautiful lining, and choosing some to carry 
 with us across country to a far distant home. That 
 many of the shells had had marketable blisters was 
 shown by little squares cut in the lining. 
 
 Another drive was that across Salinas Valley, 
 through the bright and prosperous town of Salinas, 
 up the steep San Juan grade, where one may eat 
 luncheon on a green slope commanding a lovely 
 view, and down into the little old town of San Juan, 
 where stands the mission of San Juan Baptista, 
 with its long cloisters still intact. Next to the Mis- 
 sion is an open square which is said to have been 
 the scene of bull fights in the old Spanish days. 
 
Spanish Governor’s House at San Juan. 2. San Juan Batista Mission, 
 

BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 33 
 
 A day was spent in driving over the Salinas 
 road and the Rancho del Monte road, on through 
 a lovely valley, up over the mountain along a shelf- 
 like road, and down into Carmel Valley; then along 
 another mountain road by a stream, and up again 
 to the lush meadows of a private ranch twelve hun- 
 dred feet above the sea. We left the car at the foot 
 of the hill and drove in a farm wagon to the ranch 
 house. We visited the vineyard on a sunny slope 
 back of the house, so sheltered that grapes grow 
 by the ton. We climbed into heavy Mexican 
 saddles, ornately stamped, with high pommel 
 and back, and rode astride sturdy horses over 
 steep rounding hills through thick grass to view 
 points where we could look down on Carmel Valley 
 and off to the silvery sea. As we retraced om* 
 journey in the afternoon sunlight, a bobcat came 
 out from the forest and trotted calmly ahead of us. 
 A beautiful deer ran along the stream, his ears mov- 
 ing with alarm, his eyes watching us with fear and 
 wonder. A great snake lay curled in the middle of 
 the road and we ran over him before we really saw 
 him. He made a feeble attempt to coil, but the 
 heavy machine finished him. He was only a harm- 
 less ring snake, whose good office it is to kill the go- 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
34 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 phers that destroy the fruit trees, so we were sorry 
 we had ended his useful career. He was the first 
 of many snakes that we killed in California. Some- 
 times they lay straight across our road; sometimes 
 they were stretched out in the ruts of the road and 
 our wheels went over them before we could possi- 
 bly see them; sometimes they made frantic efforts, 
 often successful, to escape our machine; we always 
 gave them a fighting chance. 
 
 It seemed that we would never tear ourselves 
 away from the Monterey Peninsula. W e wandered 
 through the beautiful grounds of the Hotel del 
 Monte with their ancient live oaks. We walked 
 and mused along the streets of Monterey, where 
 Robert Louis Stevenson once walked and mused. 
 We rejoiced in the sight of a lovely old Spanish 
 house at the head of Polk Street, carefully kept 
 up by its present owner. We saw the Sherman 
 Rose cottage, the old home of Sherman’s Spanish 
 love, and the Sherman-Halleck quarters, and the 
 old Hall of Records. We stopped to gaze at old 
 adobe dwelling houses, some with thick walls roofed 
 with tile around their yards ; some with second floor 
 galleries, supported by plain, slender wooden posts, 
 roses clambering over them. 
 
by: the LINCOLN HIGHWAY] 35 
 
 We visited the San Carlos Mission on the edge 
 of the town. Unlike the deserted little church at 
 Carmel, San Carlos is in excellent repair, perfectly 
 kept and in constant use. There they show you 
 some of the old vestments said to be Father Serra’s 
 own. There you may see his silver mass cards, 
 with their Latin inscriptions engraved upon the 
 upright silver plate, reading: “In the beginning 
 was the Word,” etc. The same beaten silver water 
 bucket which Father Serra used for holy water is 
 to-day used by the incumbent priest. On the walls 
 are the adoring angels which Father Serra taught 
 the Indians to paint. One of the special treasures 
 of the Mission is Father Serra’s beautiful beaten 
 gold chalice, a consecrated vessel touched only by 
 the priests. Back of the church is kept as a pre- 
 cious possession the stump of the old oak tree un- 
 der which Father Serra celebrated his first mass 
 and took possession of Cahfornia in the name of 
 Spain. The spot where the oak tree stood, on the 
 highway between Monterey and Pacific Grove, is 
 marked by a modest stone just below Presidio Hill. 
 
 We browsed about the curio and gift shops of 
 Monterey, and the “Lame Duck’s Exchange” of 
 Pacific Grove. We saw Asilomar (Retreat-by-the- 
 
36 
 
 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 Sea), the fine conference grounds of the Young 
 Women’s Christian Associations of the Pacific 
 Coast, with its commodious assembly and living 
 halls. We learned the delicious flavor, on many 
 picnics, of the California ripe olive. One might be 
 dubious about the satisfying quality of Omar Khay- 
 yam’s bottle of wine and loaf of bread “underneath 
 the bough.” But with the loaf of bread and plenty 
 of California olives one could be perfectly content. 
 I could have a feast of Lucullus any day in Cal- 
 ifornia on abalone soup, with its delicate sea flavor, 
 bread, and olives. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 37 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Ah well! one cannot stay forever on the Mon- 
 terey Peninsula to hear the sighing of the wind in 
 the pines and the lapping of the waves on the 
 shore. One cannot take the Seventeen Mile Drive 
 day after day to see the wind-twisted cypresses, to 
 come upon the lovely curve of Carmel Bay, and to 
 look down from “the high drive” upon the Bay and 
 town of Monterey far below, for all the world like a 
 Riviera scene. Once more we turn our faces 
 southward and drive through the broad streets of 
 Pacific Grove along the mile of coast road to Mon- 
 terey, and from Monterey into the country where 
 masses of lupine paint the hills blue on the right, 
 and live oaks dot the green valley stretches on the 
 left. Coming into Salinas Valley we drive through 
 hundreds of acres of level beet fields, south of the 
 
38 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 town of Salinas. We meet a redheaded, shock- 
 bearded man with his sun-hat tied on, walking 
 alongside a rickety moving-wagon drawn by two 
 poor horses. He responds most cheerfully to our 
 question concerning directions. As we pass his 
 wagon a big family of little children crane their 
 young necks to see us. The mother in their midst, 
 a thin, shabby looking woman, holds up her tiny 
 baby for me to see as I look back, and I wave con- 
 gratulations in response. Later, near Santa Maria, 
 we pass another moving party eating supper. They 
 are prosperous looking people, very different from 
 the forlorn, toihng little party outside of Salinas. 
 They are comfortably encamped in a grassy spot, 
 and the woman waves to me with a big loaf of bread 
 in one hand and her bread knife in the other. I 
 wave with equal heartiness to her. This is part of 
 the charm of the open road, these salutations and 
 this jolly passing exchange of sympathy, not be- 
 tween two ships that pass in the night, but between 
 two parties who enjoy the air and the open, and 
 who are one in gypsy spirit. It all belongs in the 
 happy day. 
 
 Salinas Valley is very different from the lovely 
 valleys which we have thus far seen. Sonoma Val- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 39 
 
 ley is a rolling, irregular valley, part grain fields, 
 part rough, hilly pasturage. Napa Valley, narrow 
 at the south, wide toward the north, with orchards 
 and pleasant homes, breathes of order and shut-in 
 prosperity. Santa Clara Valley is a Napa Valley 
 on a grander scale. Its surrounding hiUs are higher, 
 its spaces are wider. Sahnas Valley is a grain- 
 growing valley, its fields of grain stretching away 
 up into the foothills. As we proceed south we 
 observe that the fields encroach more and more 
 upon the hills, their rich greenness running quite 
 far up on the hill slopes. The line of demarcation 
 between the growing grain and the rough pasture 
 slopes is as clean as if drawn by a pencil. It is 
 here in Salinas Valley that we first notice the park- 
 hke appearance of many green stretches of field 
 with live oaks growing here and there. It would 
 almost seem that the oaks had been planted with a 
 view to park effects, instead of being part of the 
 original forest which had been cut down to make 
 way for the grain fields. We pass through the little 
 town of Soledad (Soltitude) near which are the 
 poor ruins of the Mission of Our Lady of Soledad. 
 We judge that Soledad must have a cosmopolitan 
 population when we read such names as Sneible, 
 
40 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 Tavernetti, and Espinosa on the town’s signs. Here 
 and there we see where the Salinas River has eaten 
 great pieces out of its banks, during the spring 
 freshets. We had seen the same thing in Carmel 
 Valley, where a man lost a large piece of his orchard 
 by its falling bodily into the raging Carmel river. 
 The streams of California are not like the streams 
 of New England, clear and deep with winey brown 
 depths. They are shallow streams with earth banks, 
 but in the time of the spring rains they become 
 wild torrents. Late in the afternoon we pass King 
 City on the opposite bank of the river, glorified by 
 the afternoon sunshine. It looks hke a picture 
 town, its buildings taking on castle-like propor- 
 tions from a distance. We then come over the Jolon 
 Grade, and descend through a little wooded valley 
 that has a particular charm. I do not know its 
 name, but it cast a certain spell that lingers with 
 me. It is a narrow valley with stretches of thick 
 green grass under forest trees, and has a quality of 
 seclusion that I have not felt in the wide acres of 
 grain in the great Salinas Valley. It is as if the 
 forest had been only partly cut away and the ad- 
 vance of the grazier and the grain grower were but 
 partly accomplished. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY, 41 
 
 We come into Jolon, a country crossroads hamlet, 
 past “Dutton’s,” a most comfortable and homelike 
 country hotel, if one may judge by appearances. I 
 am sorry not to stop for the night. I am always 
 attracted to these country inns when they have hos- 
 pitable porches and a general look of homely com- 
 fort. I should be glad, too, to take the six mile de- 
 tour from the main road in order to see the ruins of 
 the San Antonio Mission. But we have been told 
 that the Mission is in such a ruined state, one of 
 the thick walls having fallen in, that it is as well 
 not to see it. 
 
 Our next valley, even lovelier than the others, is 
 Lockwood’s Valley, a beautiful stretch of grain 
 fields. By a bend in the road we are driving east 
 with the western sun setting behind us. High hills 
 form a background for the green fields of oats and 
 barley. The whole valley with its few ranch houses 
 and its great fields breathes a country peace. Look- 
 ing back, I still regret that we could not have had 
 time to go half a mile off the main road and try 
 the merits of the Lockwood Inn. 
 
 But we drive on through the valley over a slight 
 pass and come to an adobe ranch house on the left, 
 sitting modestly back on a slight knoll against a 
 
42 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 background of bare hills. At the ranch gate is a 
 sign to the effect that this is Aloha Ranch Inn, and 
 that meals can be had at all hours. It is the word 
 Aloha that catches us. Surely someone must live 
 here who knows the lovely Hawaiian Islands with 
 their curving cocoanut palms, and their emerald 
 shores. So we turn into the drive and find a kindly 
 farmer, master of his six hundred acres in this 
 lone valley, who with his wife gives us warm wel- 
 come. He does indeed know Hawaii, having lived 
 and worked on the famous Ewa sugar plantation 
 for nearly twenty years. We have a homely but 
 appetizing supper, and a dreamless night’s sleep in 
 one of the farmhouse bedrooms. The next morn- 
 ing is gloriously beautiful, and we drive on our way. 
 In order to avoid fording the Salinas river, which 
 is very high, we make our journey by way of In- 
 dian Valley, through hilly, rather lonely country. 
 All along the river there are signs of the devasta- 
 tion made by the unusual spring rains. The river 
 banks are gouged out and the railroad bridges are 
 down, the rails being twisted into fantastic shapes. 
 In passing San Miguel we stop to see the Mission, 
 which is in a fair state of repair and in constant use. 
 One of the beautiful toned old bells of the Mission 
 
BX THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 43 
 
 is hung in a framework outside the church, where 
 the visitor may sound it. The new bell is unfortu- 
 nately suspended from the top of an immense iron, 
 derrick-like structure which stands outside the 
 church, and is unsightly. The interior of the 
 church is very fine. It is a lofty structure, fifty feet 
 high and one himdred and fifty feet long, its walls 
 covered with frescoes in rich blues and reds, the 
 work of the Indians. There are niches for holy 
 water in the thick old walls and a large niche which 
 was used for the confessional. Above the altar is 
 painted the “All-Seeing Eye.” The heavy rafters 
 of the roof extend through the walls and long wood- 
 en pins are fitted through the ends to bind the walls 
 together. Not a nail was used in the entire 
 structure. 
 
 We take luncheon at Paso Robles (Pass of the 
 Oaks), famed for its healing waters. The hotel is 
 pleasant and the new bath house with its handsome 
 marble and tiling is very fine. Many sojourn here 
 for the medicinal uses of the waters. Between 
 Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo we come 
 through a stretch of very beautiful country, part 
 open forest land, part richly pastoral, the prop- 
 erty of the Atascadero Company. The Atascadero 
 
44 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 settlement is one of those Utopian plans for happi- 
 ness and prosperity which bids fair to be realized. 
 The climate is almost ideal, the scenery is charming, 
 the country is richly fertile. They tell us that peo- 
 ple are pouring in from the East and that the colony 
 is growing constantly. At the north end of the 
 Atascadero territory we pass a handsome sign 
 swinging over the road, which reads : “Atascadero 
 Colony. North End. Ten Miles Long and Seven 
 Miles wide. Welcome.” As we approach the south 
 end of the ten mile stretch we come upon another 
 sign whose legend is: “Come again.” Turning 
 back as we pass under the sign we see that its re- 
 verse legend is the same as that of the north end 
 sign, save that it is for the south end. So whoever 
 passes along the main road through Atascadero 
 property is bound to have the uplifting welcome and 
 to receive, as he passes on, the kindly farewell. We 
 congratulate the Atascadero colonists on the lovely 
 rolling country in whose midst they are to dwell and 
 on the magnificent live oaks that dot their park-like 
 fields. San Luis Obispo is quite a large town, but 
 the Mission of San Luis Obispo has been spoiled 
 by being incorporated into the new church and 
 school plant. One catches only a glimpse of broken 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 45 
 
 cloisters within the school enclosure. I stepped 
 into the church as we drove by in the late afternoon, 
 and saw the children coming in for prayer and for 
 confession. Little stubby-toed boys tip-toed in, 
 kneeling awkwardly but reverently, and crossing 
 themselves with holy water ; while from the confes- 
 sional came the low murmur of some urchin making 
 his confession. 
 
 Not long after leaving San Luis Obispo, near Ni- 
 pomo-by-the-Sea, I had the misfortune to lose my 
 leather letter case. We were horror struck when 
 we found it gone and turned about just before 
 reaching Santa Maria to retrace our steps across the 
 long bridge and then across a wide stretch of dry, 
 sandy river bed. The ravages of the floods had torn 
 a much wider path for the river than it now used, 
 so that for nearly a mile we drove over sandy river 
 bottom, the river being a shrunken stream. To our 
 great joy we met another motor car, and found that 
 the three gentlemen in it had picked up my bag 
 and were bringing it along to Santa Maria in the 
 hope of finding the owner. What had promised to 
 be a long and tiring search, involving the question- 
 ing of every passer-by and inquiry at every wayside 
 house for miles, turned out to be only a short drive. 
 
46 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 We turned toward Santa Maria and went on our 
 way rejoicing. 
 
 Santa Maria is a large, prosperous, attractive 
 town. On toward Los Olivos the country is like 
 some parts of New England, attractive but lonely. 
 We are glad to reach in the twilight the hos- 
 pitable lights of Mattei’s Tavern at Los Olivos. 
 Mr. Mattei is Swiss by birth, but has spent 
 many years in California. He has a ranch whose 
 acres supply his unusually good table with vegeta- 
 bles, poultry, and flowers. His house is kept with 
 the neatness and comfort of an excellent Swiss inn, 
 and is a delightful place for a sojourn. We are 
 sorry to come away on the morning of the first of 
 May. We pass dozens of wagons and buggies, the 
 people all in holiday attire, coming into town for 
 the May-day celebrations. Los Olivos was once an 
 olive growing valley, but grain growing has been 
 found more profitable. We wish to see the Santa 
 Ynez mission and therefore take the route to the 
 right, avoiding the road to Santa Barbara by way 
 of Santa Ynez and the San Marcos Pass. The 
 Santa Ynez Mission has a situation of unusual 
 beauty. It stands on a tableland with a circle of 
 mountains behind it, and at its left a low green 
 
BY, THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 47 
 
 valley stretching away into the distance. A Dan- 
 ish settlement of neat new houses of modern type 
 faces the old Mission. The church has been re- 
 stored, and ten years of loving care have been be- 
 stowed upon it by the present priest and his niece. 
 The choice old vestments have been mended with 
 extreme care. The ladies of the Spanish Court are 
 said to have furnished the rich brocades for these 
 vestments, which were sent on from Spain and made 
 up at the Mission. It is an ancient custom for the 
 Indians to wash the handwoven linen vestments, 
 a custom they still observe. The walls of Santa 
 Ynez are about seven feet thick, and the Mission 
 was some thirteen years in building. Roses climb 
 over the cloisters, and the whole Mission is very 
 attractive. 
 
 From the Mission we drive over the Gaviota 
 (Seagull) Pass, the mountain road being rough, 
 narrow, and very picturesque. Fine old live oaks 
 and white oaks grow on the rough hillsides. As one 
 approaches the little seaside station of Gaviota the 
 rocks are very grand. Suddenly we come upon the 
 sea, and the blue waters that are part of the charm 
 of Santa Barbara stretch before us. The scenery 
 from Gaviota to Santa Barbara is one of the finest 
 
48 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 stretches along the entire coast. Three misty is- 
 lands are to be seen off the coast, set in an azure 
 sea. They belong to the Santa Barbara group; 
 Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Mi- 
 guel. As one approaches Santa Barbara one sees 
 farmhouses in the midst of lovely farming country 
 on points jutting into the sea and commanding ex- 
 quisite views of the water. The last ten miles be- 
 fore reaching Santa Barbara we drive through an 
 unbroken stretch of English walnut orchards, the 
 trees carefully pruned and in admirable condition. 
 We have come through the rolling pastures and 
 grain fields of Sonoma Valley, through the fruit 
 orchards of Napa Valley and Santa Clara Valley, 
 through the unbroken grain fields of Salinas Valley 
 and Lockwood’s Valley, and through the diversi- 
 fied cultivation of the valley around Los Olivos; 
 and now we are driving into famous Santa Barbara 
 through ten miles of walnut groves, garden-like in 
 their cultivation. 
 
 Reaching Santa Barbara, we have tea at the Stu- 
 dio Tea Room, which utilizes for its purpose a fa- 
 mous old Spanish residence. We then establish 
 ourselves at The Upham, and a very pleasant hotel 
 we find it. For those who wish a larger and more 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 49 
 
 fashionable inn there are the beautiful Arlington 
 Hotel, with its fascinating, tiny models of the his- 
 toric caravels San Salvador and Vittoria upon the 
 gate posts at its entrance; and the Potter, by the 
 sea. Santa Barbara lies in a pocket valley with 
 the red brown Santa Ynez mountains rising behind 
 it and the sea in front of it. Some of the most beau- 
 tiful residences are at the north of the town in the 
 foothills. Italian sunshine, Italian softness of cli- 
 mate, the enchanting colors of the hills, the blue of 
 the sea, charming drives and walks, all these are to 
 be had at Santa Barbara; and there is the Mission 
 with its old church and the dignified priests of its 
 brotherhood. Fine trees stand in the beautiful en- 
 closed garden of the Mission, where five thousand 
 Indians are buried. 
 
 Four miles south of Santa Barbara are Mon- 
 tecito Valley and the delightful Miramar Hotel 
 on the sea. A very pleasant suburban colony is 
 grouped around the hotel. The hotel itself has 
 within its grounds its own rose-embowered cottages. 
 One may live in a bungalow and have one’s own fire- 
 side, one’s own sitting room and bed chamber, one’s 
 own rose-covered porch, one’s own home life, and 
 go into the hotel only for meals and for sociability’s 
 
50 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 sake. It is an ideal winter life for those who wish 
 all the orderly, luxurious comfort of a well man- 
 aged inn, together with the privacy of home life in 
 a rose cottage. We drove through lovely little 
 Montecito Valley, catching glimpses of fine houses 
 rising against a picturesque mountain background, 
 some in the Mission style of architecture, some in 
 Italian and some in Spanish style. The lawns of 
 one estate were surrounded by long hedges of pink 
 roses. We turned south through Toro Valley 
 where I recall a most beautiful hillside olive or- 
 chard, the trees being planted on the slope sheltered 
 from the sea and facing the mountains. They were 
 as beautiful in their fresh grey-greenness as any 
 olive orchard that we saw in all California. Leav- 
 ing Miramar we drove on along the coast to Ven- 
 tura, the road running by the sea and in some 
 places on long platforms built out over the water. 
 At Ventura we turned west and came to Nordhoff, 
 the bridge being down on the Casitas Pass. We 
 had a somewhat lonely evening drive through a 
 green fruited valley from Ventura to Nordhoff, 
 and reached our hostel, the Pierpont Cottages, a 
 few miles from Nordhoff, late in the evening. We 
 were more than ready for supper and for rest in a 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 51 
 
 lovely private cottage, through whose open case- 
 ment long sprays of pink roses climbed in. The 
 morning revealed to us the rare beauties of the se- 
 cluded Ojai Valley, in whose foothills stand the 
 Pierpont Inn and cottages, 1000 feet above sea 
 level. 
 
 It would be hard to exaggerate the charm and 
 beauty of the Ojai Valley for those who like its 
 type of scenery. A magnificent wall of stone moun- 
 tain, whose colors run into greys, pinks, lavenders, 
 and yellows, forms the eastern boundary of the 
 valley. On its level floor are luxuriant orchards. 
 Here in warm protection grow the fig, the olive, 
 the orange, and the lemon. The beautiful Matilija 
 poppies grow in great luxuriance here, their tall 
 grey-green stalks and white crape petals with gol- 
 den hearts being very effective. I had seen the 
 Matilija poppies for the first time growing in the 
 gardens of Santa Barbara. I now saw them grow- 
 ing wild on the slopes of the Ojai Valley foothills. 
 Above the Pierpont Cottages are the buildings of a 
 famous boys’ school high in the foothills. For those 
 who love warmth and glowing color, long tramps 
 and long horseback rides into the mountain defiles 
 above the valley, the Ojai is an ideal place to spend 
 
52 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 a charmed winter. We came away in the morning 
 light, driving across the valley to the main road 
 and ascending a steep hill to the Upper Ojai road. 
 A glorious view of the whole valley unrolled before 
 us, level as a floor, with its rich masses of fig trees 
 and its shining orange and lemon trees, their green 
 broken here and there by trim houses. Higher up 
 were the cottages of the Pierpont Inn, and higher 
 still the big building of the school, all over-topped 
 by the great masses of the mountains behind. I 
 felt that I should like to build a bungalow on the 
 spot and live and die there. 
 
 We come on by a very rough, narrow, bumpy, 
 and precipitous mountain road, past the summer 
 cottages of Sulphur Springs into the Santa Paula 
 Valley. We pass people planting young orchards 
 of lemons and oranges, and we come through de- 
 files, the bare, rugged hills rising above us on both 
 sides. Sometimes these hills are clay-colored. 
 Sometimes they are painted a delicate lavender by 
 whole hillsides of blooming sage; sometimes sage 
 not yet in bloom covers the hills with a delicate 
 grey-green mantle. Other hillsides are a bright 
 yellow from a yellow, string-like plant that nets 
 itself in great masses over the entire slope. On the 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 53 
 
 whole the country until we reach Santa Paula is 
 rather bare. At Santa Paula there is a very pleas- 
 ant inn. It was at Santa Paula that I saw a school- 
 house enclosure surrounded by a hedge-like row of 
 trees, every tree a blooming mass of glorious yellow. 
 
 At Sespe we passed a very prosperous lemon 
 and orange orchard of immense size where they 
 were planting fresh orchards of slender young 
 trees. Before we reached Saugus we had to ford 
 the Santa Clara River, the bridge being down. We 
 stuck in the soft sand in mid-river and T. was 
 obliged to wade through the shallow water to the 
 shore behind us, which happened to be nearest, to go 
 in search of a countryman and horses. In the 
 meantime I took off my boots and stockings and 
 waded across to the far side of the stream. There 
 I was just lacing my boots when a young gentle- 
 man appeared driving a small car. He debated 
 as to the risk of driving across stream, but decided 
 to try it. Driving slowly he succeeded in getting 
 through and turned to wave his hat in triumph. 
 I waved back and he pushed on his way. Soon T. 
 appeared with a countryman driving two stout 
 horses. They quickly pulled the car across and 
 their master received a dollar for his services. 
 
54 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 After an indifferent lunch at the Saugus railway 
 station we went on over the fine Newhall grade, 
 through Fernando and the great San Fernando 
 Valley, through the brand new town of Van Nuys, 
 and the settlement of Lankershim and the hand- 
 some suburb of Hollywood into Los Angeles. The 
 San Fernando Valley, a wide plain with mountains 
 in the far distance, has been turned by the magic of 
 water from a vast, scrubby desert into a fruitful re- 
 gion, rapidly becoming populous. The San Fer- 
 nando Mission Company has placed in front of the 
 old San Fernando Mission on the broad highway 
 which now runs past the Mission a charming flower 
 garden. The bright flowers blaze out in the after- 
 noon sun against a background of fragments of 
 grey adobe wall. The Mission itself has but little 
 to show. A caretaker lives in the fragment of the 
 old monastery and shows one through the few de- 
 serted and dingy rooms. The finest thing in San 
 Fernando Valley is the new boulevard which sweeps 
 through the valley to Los Angeles and is known 
 as the $500,000 boulevard. It is largely due to the 
 generalship of Mr. Whitely, who is a Napoleon of 
 real estate. Through the middle of the boulevard 
 
Harbor of Avalon, Catalina Island. 2. and 3. San Fernando Mission. 
 
OF I'FlE 
 
 Of famo.= 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 55 
 
 runs the electric car line. On each side of the car 
 line is a border of rose hushes of different varieties. 
 Outside of this border are two fine roads, one on 
 either side; and again outside of these roads is a 
 wonderful border planted in the following order: 
 first, a line of rose bushes, and second, a line of In- 
 dian deodars, first cousins to the Lebanon cedars, 
 these deodars alternating in their planting with a 
 flowering shrub; third, comes a line of Austrian 
 and other varieties of pines; fourth, is planted a 
 row of palm trees. At present this planting is in 
 its early stages, but when roses, shrubs, and ever- 
 greens are larger, as they will soon be under the 
 bright California sun, the effect will be very rich 
 and beautiful. Van Nuys has a fine new school- 
 house, and shining new dwellings of white glazed 
 brick, built in the Italian and the Spanish style. 
 
 California specializes in schooUiouses and street 
 lamps. In the newest and in some instances in the 
 most isolated settlements, you will find beautiful 
 schoolhouses, an earnest of the children and the 
 education that are to be; and all over California in 
 country villages one finds the main streets lined 
 with ornate lamp standards surmovmted by hand- 
 
56 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 some globes. They give an air even to sordid little 
 streets lined by saloons, country groceries, and dry- 
 goods emporiums. 
 
 California is not afraid to spend money for edu- 
 cation. Her school buildings, many of them in the 
 Mission style, would make Eastern towns of the 
 same size gasp with amazement. 
 
 Hollywood with its lovely villas is a popular and 
 beautiful suburb of Los Angeles, and seems almost 
 like a second Los Angeles save that it is among the 
 hills instead of on the plain. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY, 57 
 
 CHAPTER IVi 
 
 Los Angeles is unique. Where will you find 
 another city like it, so open, so bright, with such 
 handsome apartment houses, designed for light 
 housekeeping, such multitudes of cafeterias? 
 Where will you find such a green square of civic 
 center with people sitting quietly about, enjoying 
 the sunshine, the splashing of the fountain, the 
 tameness of the starlings? These are the happy, 
 not the unhappy, unemployed. They have come 
 from far and near to live simply in light house- 
 keeping apartments, to bask in the sunshine, many 
 of them to enjoy a sunny old age on a modest but 
 comfortable income. The last census, they tell us, 
 shows that 80 per cent of the Los Angeles people 
 are from the State of Iowa. But from all the. Mid- 
 dle West they have fled from the cold winters to 
 
58 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 the warmth of this big city which really seems to be 
 not a city at all, but an immense collection of open 
 parks, bright houses, and handsome streets. Thou- 
 sands of people are pouring into Los Angeles every 
 year. Great fields around the city have been in- 
 cluded within the city limits, fine streets with ornate 
 lamps and copings have been cut through them, 
 handsome stucco and shingle villas have been 
 erected. These are homes of well-to-do people who 
 mean to spend at least part of each year, if not the 
 rest of their lives, in Los Angeles. It is all a puz- 
 zle, this phenomenal growth of the city. It is not 
 wholly due to business, for the most prosperous 
 business man in Los Angeles is probably the real 
 estate dealer, who has plotted the fields, added new 
 streets, and sold at ever-increasing prices the villa 
 and home sites. The merchant and the provision 
 dealer do well, but after all, their territory is the city 
 itself. There is no great hinterland with which to 
 deal. It is not due to manufacturing interests, for 
 as yet these have been but little developed. It must 
 be, as a lady said to me, “the sale of the climate,” an 
 unfailing stock of sunshine that has made Los An- 
 geles the happy, growing, extremely prosperous 
 city that it is. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 59 
 
 One may choose from many hotels one’s hostel, 
 or one may live in a beautiful apartment, cook one’s 
 own breakfast of bacon and eggs, and sally forth to 
 any one of a dozen cafeterias for luncheon and din- 
 ner. We found the Hotel Leighton on West Lake 
 Park eminently satisfactory ; a spacious, quiet, well 
 managed establishment with the spaces of the park 
 before it and the cars within three minutes’ walk. 
 
 From Los Angeles we drove through the San 
 Gabriel Valley, dominated by snow covered Mount 
 San Antonio, to Long Beach. The valley is a 
 panorama of new suburban towns, market gardens, 
 and walnut groves. Long Beach is a mixture of 
 Coney Island, Atlantic City, and a solid, substan- 
 tial inland town. Its public buildings are very fine, 
 its churches being particularly handsome. Its big 
 Hotel Virginia reminds one of the handsome hotels 
 along the boardwalk at Atlantic City, and its long 
 arcade of amusement halls, cheap jewelry shops, 
 and other booths for seaside trinkets is like Coney 
 Island. This stretch of amusement halls and shops 
 lies along the seashore at a lower level than the city 
 proper, and does not impart its character to the rest 
 of the town. It was at Long Beach that I first 
 heard a night-singing bird, somewhat like the night- 
 
60 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 ingale. The little creature sang gaily all night long 
 in the park opposite our hotel. Long Beach and 
 San Pedro are both sailing points for Santa Cata- 
 lina Island, twenty-five miles away, whose purple- 
 grey heights can be dimly seen across the water. 
 The trip to Catalina is in rather small boats, and 
 is likely to be somewhat trying; but the trials of 
 the two or three hours of voyage are amply awarded 
 by the Island itself. 
 
 Santa Catalina has a curving, sickle-shaped har- 
 bor around which cluster the hotels and boarding 
 houses which make the home of the summer guests. 
 This little white village against a background of 
 hilly country, taking on lovely lavender and grey 
 tints at sunset, is not unlike some of the towns on 
 the picturesque coast of Cornwall. Santa Cata- 
 lina is a paradise for deep-sea fishermen, a lotus 
 eaters’ island where one may walk over the hills 
 into the quiet interior or take a boat and dream 
 along the rocks, gazing down for hours at the beau- 
 ties of the gardens of the sea. I would advise all 
 tourists to take time to visit these swaying groves 
 of kelp and other sea plants in a row boat. One 
 sees them in this way far more intimately and sat- 
 isfactorily than by a more hurried inspection. In 
 
Harbor, Catalina Island. 2. Seals on Rocks at Catalina Island. 3. Catalina Island. 4. Home 
 
 Owner of Catalina Island. 
 
libra hr 
 
 OF Ih£ 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF iLLlNOiS 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 61 
 
 the late afternoon everyone at Catalina gathers at 
 the pier to see the fishermen come in with their 
 spoils. Boat after boat is seen approaching. They 
 round the pier and the big fish are lifted up for all 
 to admire. Then come the weighing and the clean- 
 ing of the fish. The seagulls hover near, ready for 
 their share of the spoils, as the entrails of the fish 
 are thrown into the sea. A tame seal swims around 
 from his home on the rocks several miles away in 
 order to have his portion of the feast. At the time 
 of our visit he was in a fit of sulks, as a fisherman 
 had struck him on the head with an oar because he 
 had tried to clamber into a boat in his zeal for his 
 supper. A unique experience at Catalina is an 
 evening ride in a swift motor boat equipped with 
 a powerful searchlight. Faster and faster goes the 
 boat in the darkness, the searchlight swinging from 
 side to side over the wide waters. The flying flsh, 
 startled by the sweep of the light upon the water, 
 leap wildly into the air. The air is full of them, 
 and of the sound of their rushing wings. Plump! 
 Here comes one into the boat I and here’s another, 
 and another! We shield our faces with our hands, 
 shouting with laughter as the fish fall with a thump 
 into the boat, sometimes on the laps of the passen- 
 
62 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 gers. More than one passenger has been struck 
 by a flying fish, and our landlady tells us of a tou- 
 rist who went out for an evening ride in the motor 
 boat to return with a black eye from the blow of a 
 frightened flying fish. Flying fish is delicious eat- 
 ing, and our catch is divided up among the passen- 
 gers. We were attracted to this excursion when we 
 first landed at Catalina by a startling advertisement 
 describing the experience as “Thousands of flying 
 fish tangoing through the air.” 
 
 Catalina Island is a quiet spot, outside its little 
 rim of houses along its curving harbor. The pe- 
 destrian may go inland for a number of miles, tak- 
 ing his luncheon with him, and have only the hills 
 and the birds for his company. We had such a walk, 
 and saw a hawk alight and settle himself calmly 
 upon a fencepost, holding in his talons a newly 
 captured snake. The creature was still alive, its 
 body ringed in a rigid hoop in its effort to escape. 
 But the cruel claws held it fast, and its captor was 
 preparing to finish it with his sharp beak. W e were 
 told that the dust from Santa Ana Valley, twenty- 
 five miles away, could be seen approaching in a grey 
 cloud across the water on windy days from shore- 
 ward. Our landlady deplored such days, when her 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 63 
 
 immaculate house was covered with the dust of the 
 distant mainland. Santa Catalina, a grey green 
 agate in the sunlight, a purple amethyst at twilight, 
 ringed by lovely seas, is well worth a visit. 
 
 Returning to Long Beach, we drove on toward 
 San Diego, through the Santa Ana Valley to San 
 Juan Capistrano. As we came through the great 
 valley in which lie Santa Ana, Fullerton, and Ana- 
 heim, we passed fruitful groves of lemons and vast 
 fields of beets. We observed an odd optical illus- 
 ion as we came near Tustin. All the fields before 
 us seemed to be covered with water, and we at first 
 thought that the irrigating streams had been turned 
 on and were flowing through them. But as we 
 reached the fields we found them perfectly dry. 
 Field after field stretched before us apparently 
 swimming in water, and field after field as we came 
 near we found dry and brown under the sun. This 
 occurred more than once in southern California as 
 we were driving along in the sunlight. 
 
 At San Juan Capistrano we stopped to see one 
 of the most beautiful Missions in all California. 
 The cloisters of San Juan, the ruins of the very fine 
 old church, the bells in their places above the walls, 
 all are extremely picturesque and beautiful. At 
 
64 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 San Juan with its quaint little street we found twe 
 hotels, both of which had attractions. The Mission 
 Hotel offered us Spanish cooking, attractive to one 
 fond of red pepper and high seasoning. Las Rosas 
 looked like a pleasant country home turned by some 
 enterprising woman into an inn. We chose Las 
 Rosas and had an excellent home dinner there. 
 From San Juan Capistrano we drove on south to 
 Dehnar, where we spent the night at the Stratford 
 Inn. This hotel, which sits flower-encircled on its 
 sandy hillside overlooking the blue seas, has every 
 modern appointment and luxury. The settlement 
 does not yet seem to have attracted a large cottage 
 population, but there are some homes of very 
 charming architecture and with beautiful gardens. 
 We walked up the picturesque hills back of the 
 hotel, and came at their summit to the precipitous 
 edge of a great bowl from which we looked down 
 upon a green valley stretching away many miles 
 in extent. 
 
 From Dehnar the next morning we again drove 
 south with the sea on our right and the hills on our 
 left. The road winds over very hilly country 
 through a growth of rare pines known as the Tor- 
 rey pines, found only here. From the heights of 
 
and 3. San Juan Capistrano Mission. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOiS 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 65 
 
 these hills one sees at a distance a point of land 
 stretching into the sea, with a little town shining on 
 its slopes like a jewel in the sun. It looks, as 
 one approaches it from the north, like a Riviera 
 town. This is the enchanted spot on the south- 
 thern coast known as La Jolla (pronounced La 
 Hoya) , a little town frequented by people who love 
 the Spanish warmth of the Southern sun and the 
 blue of the Southern sea. Here is a beautiful Epis- 
 copal school for girls, its stucco buildings planned 
 in Spanish fashion. Here is a charming little 
 church of the same architecture. Here, perched on 
 the rocks, looking out to sea along the coast fringe 
 of the town, are flat-roofed stucco houses with a 
 matchless view of the water. Farther back on the 
 hills overlooking the town, are lovely winter homes, 
 also built in the architecture of Southern countries. 
 La Jolla is one of the loveliest spots on the whole 
 Pacific Coast. Its rocks, its caves, its Southern 
 sea, its sunshine, all combine to make it a delightful 
 place in which to spend a winter. 
 
 La Jolla is only fourteen miles from San Diego, 
 and it was an easy drive from there into the bright, 
 clean, shining city of the South. San Diego is at 
 present in a state of transition, the transition from 
 
66 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 a little city to a big city. She has a matchless har- 
 bor, plenty of room in which to grow, and what is 
 becoming a rich surrounding country. She has a 
 perfect situation, with the harbor before her and 
 the hills rising behind her. When the rails connect 
 her with the “back country” she will undoubtedly 
 become a powerful city. 
 
 WTiat could be more beautiful than the drive 
 from San Diego out along the point which curves 
 like a great claw into the sea and is known as Point 
 Loma? The road first sweeps along close to the 
 water, passing rows of pretty suburban homes. 
 Then it rises, swings up over the hills on to the high 
 ridge of Point Loma proper, the open sea to the 
 right, the harbor to the left, passing the beautifully 
 kept grounds of the fine property belonging to the 
 School of Theosophy. Beyond, the road still 
 climbs until it comes to the end of the Point, on 
 which stands a little old Spanish lighthouse, now 
 abandoned. High above the sea one looks off to the 
 far away islands. Turning about, one sees the 
 city, white in the sun, the mountains rising in the 
 distance behind it. Running out from the city is a 
 long, narrow strip of land which widens into Coro- 
 nado Beach, with the red roofs of the hotel and the 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY, 67 
 
 * green stretches of the beautiful little town of Coro- 
 nado. Just below is the blue water of the great 
 harbor. It is a grand view, and ranks in my opinion 
 with the noble views of Sydney Harbor in Austra- 
 lia and of Auckland harbor in New Zealand. 
 
 San Diego, like her sister cities of Los Angeles 
 and San Francisco, is a town frequented by tour- 
 ists. Many are the hotels and apartment houses, 
 devoted to winter sojourns and light housekeeping, 
 offset by excellent cafeterias. There are plenty 
 of excursions from San Diego, a short one 
 being to the Spanish house in the village of 
 old San Diego, known as the home of Ra- 
 mona. The old house with its walled garden and 
 its wide porches has been put in order and is now 
 used as a depot for curios and Indian goods. An- 
 other delightful trip, somewhat longer, is to Gross- 
 mont. Grossmont is, in spite of its name, a little 
 mountain, some fifteen miles back of San Diego. 
 It is an irregular heap of rocks, rising from rather 
 barren surroimding country. Mr. Fletcher of 
 San Diego first saw the possibilities of Gross- 
 mont and marked out the road which now runs 
 around the mountain to its smnmit. Here are the 
 modest houses of an artist and literary colony. 
 
68 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 among them the cottage of Madame Schumann- 
 Heinck. From the porches of these cottages, 
 perched high upon the bare rocks, one looks down 
 upon the exquisite little El Cajon (The Box) Val- 
 ley, where grow lemons, oranges, and other fruits 
 in beautiful green luxuriance. El Cajon could 
 once have been bought for a song, but now its fer- 
 tile acres, under the spell of irrigation, are worth 
 many thousands. 
 
 Beyond El Cajon rise the superb mountains of 
 the South in all their rocky grandeur. They take 
 on most wonderful colors ; warm clay yellows, rich 
 browns, lavenders, tints of ashes of rose. They are 
 constantly changing as the day advances, and are a 
 world of color. No wonder that singers, poets, and 
 artists love to look upon the glowing greens below 
 and the glowing lavenders afar. The view from 
 Grossmont is extremely poetic and beautiful. 
 
 We should have considered our visit to California 
 very incomplete without having seen San Diego, its 
 Southern seas and its fascinating “back country.” 
 It is wholly diflPerent from Los Angeles, and the 
 charm of the South is over it all. Were I a young 
 business man, seeking to cast in my lot with a grow- 
 ing California city, I should cast it in San Diego. 
 
BY, THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 69 
 
 From San Diego we proceeded through El Ca- 
 jon Valley to the little town of Julian, nearly 
 4000 feet high. That was a memorable ride, 
 taking us through green valleys and then up, up 
 through broken hill country and past heavy oak 
 and pine forests and rich mountain pastures. In 
 going over Mussey’s Grade I saw, for the first time, 
 growing on the rocky hillsides groups of tall yuc- 
 cas. I could not be content until I had climbed out 
 of the motor and cut one of the towering stalks, 
 springing from a mass of thick, sword-shaped 
 leaves. Its white scented bells covered the stalk 
 from top to bottom. It was a tree of creamy bloom 
 and perfume. I laid it on top of om luggage, en- 
 joying its perfume from time to time; but the beau- 
 tiful bells began to droop, and by the time the day’s 
 long journey was over the flowers had withered. 
 Afterward, I saw many of these yuccas growing 
 in lonely, rocky places, blooming luxuriantly. They 
 were like tall white candelabra. 
 
 On our way to Julian, a few miles from the little 
 town, by mistake we turned left instead of right, 
 and had a long wandering through a great moun- 
 tain country. The roads were narrow, twilight was 
 coming on, and we found ourselves in a seemingly 
 
70 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 endless forest. Sometimes from high points we had 
 wonderful sunset glimpses of distant mountains 
 looming above green valleys. Then again we came 
 upon lush meadow patches, wide and lonely in the 
 midst of the hills. Still the road wound on, down 
 through ravines, up over steep hillsides. Not a 
 house was to be seen, only the lonely forest and the 
 deepening darkness. It looked as if we must spend 
 the night in the woods. At last we came out through 
 a rough gate into the main road and reading a sign 
 by the light of a match found that we were a mile 
 from Julian. It was good to reach the tiny vil- 
 lage and to find the Robinson House, a very clean 
 and respectable village inn, kept by an old colored 
 soldier and his wife. They gave us an excellent 
 supper and we found a very comfortable bed await- 
 ing us. We had taken a road through the moun- 
 tain district back of a beautiful summer inn, known 
 as the Pine Hills Inn, and had wandered over the 
 drives planned for the pleasure of summer guests. 
 
 We saw the Pine Hills Inn perched upon the 
 hillside, the next morning. It was only a short dis- 
 tance from where we had struck the main road for 
 Julian. We had fully intended to spend a night 
 at this famous little inn, but must leave that for 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 71 
 
 the next time. Julian is famed for its apples, grow- 
 ing nearly 4000 feet high. We saw a charm- 
 ing picture of blossoming apple trees, grown 
 against a dark background of tall mountain pines 
 which flanked the orchard slope. There is a fa- 
 mous view near Julian. Looking down from a 
 break in the hills one sees far, far beyond and be- 
 low the grey stretches of the desert and the Salton 
 sea. 
 
 From Julian we drove on to Warner’s Hot 
 Springs, where many people resort for the healing 
 power of the Springs, and where a pleasant little 
 hotel, surrounded by cottages, makes a delightful 
 stopping place for those who wish to enjoy the sun- 
 shine and to pierce the defiles of the mountains 
 back of the valley of the Springs. The Springs 
 are on a great ranch which covers thousands of 
 acres and supports hundreds of cattle. To reach 
 them one drives over long stretches of plain, partly 
 rich grass, where cattle feed, partly somewhat bar- 
 ren country. 
 
 Leaving the Hot Springs, we drove again across 
 the vast sandy stretches and the rich green plains 
 of the Warner Ranch, coming from there through 
 picturesque and somewhat broken country to the 
 
72 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 little Pala Mission. Before reaching the Mis- 
 sion one comes along a mountain road cut like 
 a shelf into the hill and very high above the valley. 
 The little town which is the seat of the Mission is 
 reached by a long descent. The most interesting 
 thing about the Mission now is its bells, which are 
 set so that the wall in whose open niches they are 
 hung makes a picturesque framework for them. 
 Leaving the town we came on through a deep and 
 rocky canyon, whose scenery was wild and moim- 
 tainous. From this we emerged into a broad valley 
 which grew more beautiful as we traveled north- 
 ward. Wide grain ranches stretched away to the 
 right, walled in by the massive ramparts of Nellie 
 Palomar Mountain. Other ranches stretched to the 
 left, ending in the foothills in rich groves of olive 
 trees. We were traveling through Temecula on 
 our way to Elsinore, a town of hot springs. There 
 we spent a comfortable night at a hotel situated on 
 a little lake. The lake in the evening light with the 
 olive orchards stretching down to its waters from 
 the foothills opposite was very charming. From 
 Elsinore we drove on in the morning through an 
 open canyon, where Matilija poppies grew plenti- 
 fully, to Corona. Corona is a lovely little town 
 
Pala Mission. 2. Hillside Orchard in California. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 UniVERSlTY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 
 (] 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 73 
 
 belted by an encircling boulevard, broad and 
 shaded. It lies in a fertile valley whose plains and 
 hill-slopes are covered by thousands of lemon trees, 
 tended with a mother’s care. Above the valley rise 
 the mountains on the distant horizon. One can see 
 lemons being gathered, flowers blooming, and new 
 groves being planted in the valley, and then look 
 up to snow-capped peaks beyond. Here lemon 
 orchards are valued at $2,000 and more an acre. 
 When the trees have reached the bearing stage and 
 are in good condition, lemon orchard land is a gold 
 mine. We heard of people who rented their or- 
 chards on the basis of $2,000 value per acre, receiv- 
 ing interest on that valuation. We heard also of 
 successful lemon growers who had purchased large 
 acreages of lemon-bearing land at $1,000 per acre 
 and who had within two years after purchase mar- 
 keted a crop of lemons whose selling price covered 
 the entire amount paid for the orchard two years 
 before. 
 
 We visited a big packing house and saw dark 
 eyed Sicilians, alert and prosperous, sorting, clean- 
 ing, and packing the lemons. Everything pro- 
 ceeded with swiftness and yet with orderliness. 
 Down the long troughs rolled the lemons, each grav- 
 
74 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 itating through a hole according to its size. Into a 
 bubbling cauldron they were gently railroaded, 
 where brushes from above and from below washed 
 them and pushed them on. With much deft- 
 ness packers caught a square of tissue paper with 
 the left hand, a lemon with the right hand and 
 wrapped the fruit. The filled box was pushed 
 along a polished runway to the inspector. He 
 deftly and quickly looked the box over, decided 
 whether the packing was close and firm, nailed on 
 a top, and bound the box with supporting iron 
 bands. It was then ready to go into the freight 
 car on the track a few feet away, where experienced 
 men were loading the car with the yellow fruit. We 
 were told that notwithstanding competition with 
 the Sicilian and Italian fruit, California lemons had 
 all the market their owners could wish for. Cer- 
 tainly when one sees the care with which the fruit 
 is grown, the mellow sun under which it matures, 
 and the skillful gathering, cleaning, and packing of 
 the packing houses, one wishes every right of way 
 for California lemons. One lemon grower told us 
 that in the course of the past twenty years he had 
 advanced hundreds of dollars to his Sicilian labor- 
 ers who had asked his help to bring over their 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 75 
 
 fathers, their brothers, and other relatives. He 
 said that kinsman after kinsman had been brought 
 over and had added himself and his work to the 
 Corona colony, and that their benefactor had never 
 lost a dollar. All the loans had been conscien- 
 tiously returned in the course of time. 
 
 Californians look forward to a great flood of im- 
 migration within the next few years, and hope that 
 Europe will send them the men to till their lands 
 and cultivate their rich valleys and hill-slopes. 
 There is plenty of room for them in this splendid 
 empire of a State. 
 
76 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 It was an easy drive from Corona to Riverside, 
 which we reached in the late afternoon in time for 
 a sunset drive up and around the corkscrew road 
 leading to the top of Mt. Rubidoux. No one 
 should miss the view from the top of Rubidoux 
 Mountain. While its summit is not at a great 
 height, yet the mountain is so isolated and the whole 
 surrounding country is so level a valley that the 
 view is very extensive. One looks down upon the 
 town of Riverside, with its pleasant homes and 
 church steeples; and upon miles of lemon and or- 
 ange orchards groomed to the last degree of fer- 
 tility and perfection. It is an immense garden. 
 Orchards, towns, grassy spaces with a silver river 
 winding through them, all give one that sense, ever 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 77 
 
 present in California, of happiness, of genial cli- 
 mate, of unfailing beauty of surrounding. 
 
 At Riverside one stays of course, even if but for 
 a night, at the famous Mission Inn, known as the 
 Glenwood. Here is the creation of a man who has 
 brought together in imique and pleasing combina- 
 tion the features of an inn, of a great curio shop, 
 of a cathedral, of a happy lounging place. You 
 may study for hours antique pieces of furniture; 
 old tapestries, old hells, old bits of stained glass. 
 You may spend an evening in the great music hall 
 with its cathedral seats and listen to the organ 
 played by a finished and yet popular artist. You 
 may lounge in an easy chair on a cloistered porch. 
 All these and many other things you may do at the 
 wonderful Mission Inn. But the open road called 
 us and we had time for only one night in Riverside. 
 We drove from Riverside to Redlands, a particu- 
 larly charming town. It has a better situation than 
 Riverside, being on a slope instead of upon a level 
 plain. It has beautiful streets and hosts of lovely 
 winter homes of most attractive architecture. The 
 drive up to Smiley Heights, where one rims 
 through exquisite gardens along a narrow ridge, 
 looking down upon a green cultivated valley on the 
 
78 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 one side, and a polished winter city on the other 
 side, is a delightful experience. 
 
 From Redlands we drove on to San Bernardino 
 and thence to Pomona and Claremont. The San 
 Bernardino Yalley has miles of grapes, the vine- 
 yards being on an immense scale. In California 
 the grapes are not trained upon arbors. The stalks 
 are kept low, and in looking over a vineyard one 
 sees long rows of low growing, stocky vines, and 
 masses of green foliage. In San Bernardino they 
 have a fashion of planting windbreaks of ever- 
 greens around their gardens and smaller vineyards ; 
 but there are also immense stretches of open coun- 
 try planted with vines. One vineyard of three 
 thousand acres has a sign announcing that it is the 
 largest vineyard in the world. Pomona and Clare- 
 mont are pleasant towns, Pomona being the seat of 
 a college. From Claremont we drove on to Pasa- 
 dena. There are lovely drives about Pasadena, and 
 one should not neglect to go up along the foot- 
 hills and from that point of vantage look down 
 upon the town spread out on the slopes below. 
 There is now a motor drive up Mt. Wilson, from 
 which one has extremely grand views, but the Mt. 
 Wilson drive is to be recommended only to people 
 
by; the LINCOLN HIGHWAY] 79 
 
 with small, light machines which have a short turn- 
 ing base. The mountain road is by no means the 
 equal of the roads one finds in the Alps. It is too 
 narrow and too hazardous for any but small ma- 
 chines. For most tourists the nine miles of the Mt. 
 Wilson road would better be traversed on donkey- 
 back. For those who love to climb, the winding 
 road is a delightful walk with views of changing 
 grandeur. The hotel at the top is a very pleasant 
 place to stay, and one may have there the glories 
 of the sunset and the sunrise. 
 
 The most lovely avenue in Pasadena, up and 
 down which one should drive several times, is Or- 
 ange Grove Avenue. Along the street the feathery 
 pepper tree and the palm alternate. The strik- 
 ingly handsome electric lamp standards are of 
 bronze. Open lawns are characteristic settings for 
 the beautiful houses which line the avenue. There 
 are many houses of white or yellow stucco, some of 
 them set off by delicate iron balconies. Leaving the 
 finished beauty of Orange Avenue we drove over a 
 great canyon across which is flung a very ornamen- 
 tal bridge. The canyon has been turned into a 
 park, and fine houses stand on its banks, command- 
 ing from their heights wonderful views. 
 
80 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 We came on through Burbank and once more 
 into the San Fernando Valley, just being opened 
 up. Here and there were tiny houses and some- 
 times tents, the first shelters of settlers who were 
 cultivating their newly acquired patches of land. 
 We saw people cleaning and plowing their land. 
 Off to the right were beautiful mountains with 
 houses and ranches nestled in the foothills. We 
 drove through the new town of San Fernando and 
 over the fine highway of the Newhall grade, pass- 
 ing through a tunnel and going on to Saugus by a 
 splendid road running all the way from Pasadena. 
 Just after leaving San Fernando we came through 
 Sylmar, where a big sign told us that we were pass- 
 ing “the largest olive orchard in the world.” This 
 is the property of the Los Angeles Olive Growers’ 
 Association. We drove for more than a mile past 
 the ranks of grey-green trees which stretched away 
 back to the foothills. 
 
 From Saugus we turned toward Mint Canyon. 
 We were now about to cross the great backbone of 
 California, running north and south and dividing 
 the valleys of the coast from the valleys of the in- 
 terior. We could have crossed by the Tehachapi 
 Pass, but preferred for this time to drive through 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 81 
 
 Mint Canyon and over the Tejon Pass. All along 
 the Canyon we saw little homesteads planted in 
 pocket valleys. Here and there were green spots ; 
 orchards newly set out, patches of grain beginning 
 to grow. Little wooden shacks showed where the 
 homesteaders had first sheltered their household 
 goods. The settlers themselves were working in 
 their fields and orchards. There were long 
 stretches, too, of rough country where tall yuccas, 
 sometimes ten feet high, were blooming. At Palm- 
 dale we came out into a great plain, the mountains 
 in the distance. A high wind was blowing, filling 
 our eyes with dust. Somewhere on the plain the 
 searching wind whipped my lightweight motor coat 
 out of the tonneau where I had stowed it and I saw 
 it no more. It was literally blown out of sight and 
 knowledge. We had seen all along advertisements 
 of “Palmdale Acres,” and we now came to the little 
 town itself, a tiny settlement with flamboyant signs 
 advertising its high hopes. We read, “Keep your 
 eye on Palmdale, 10,000 people in 1925.” Close to 
 the sign was the irrigation ditch with a thick stream 
 of water rushing through. We realized that all the 
 hopes of Palmdale and all the possibilities of future 
 population were centered in that stream, which was 
 
82 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 to carry life and fertility to the great dusty plains 
 before us. 
 
 We had taken luncheon at Acton, a sordid little 
 place with an extremely imattractive wooden hotel, 
 poor and bare. The luncheon, cooked and served 
 by a hard working landlady, had been better than 
 appearances promised. We had had hot beefsteak, 
 a good boiled potato, some crisp lettuce, and fair 
 tea. Western people are addicted to green tea, a 
 great affliction to one accustomed to black tea. 
 Western hotel keepers would do well to use black 
 tea for their tourists, as the use of green tea is, so 
 far as I know, almost unknown in the East. 
 
 Our road was rising now and we were approach- 
 ing Neenach. We were driving along the foot- 
 hills on the high side of another great valley. As 
 we came near Neenach we passed an orchard to our 
 right, the trees loaded with beautiful, velvety green 
 almonds. To the left was another orchard, filled 
 with neglected, dying almond trees. We had not 
 known whether we would find at Neenach a little 
 town or a corner grocery store. It turned out to 
 be simply a post offlce in the home of a young set- 
 tler who with his wife was just making his start at 
 ranching. He was a delightful yoimg fellow with 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 83 
 
 shining white teeth, clear eyes, and an enthusiasm 
 that was pleasant to see. A big St. Bernard dog 
 protected his wife, who looked very picturesque in 
 her riding costume. Although the ranchman had 
 been brought up in a city, he had come out to these 
 foothills, bought one hundred and sixty acres at 
 $17.50 an acre, driven his well forty feet, got his 
 water, and planted his cottonwood trees for his 
 first shade. He was soon to plant his orchard and 
 start his garden. He told us that he would have 
 plenty of water, as the mountains on whose foot- 
 slopes the farm lay were nine miles deep and fifteen 
 miles long. I asked him about the orchards which 
 we had just passed, so fruitful on the right, so sad 
 and neglected on the left. He said that the al- 
 mond orchards on the left had been planted years 
 ago by a little colony of people who had three bad 
 years following their planting. They became dis- 
 couraged and moved away, abandoning their or- 
 chards and houses. The orchards which we had 
 seen full of fruit were of a later planting. 
 
 We asked why it was that the great spaces of 
 Antelope Valley which stretched below the hills 
 and off to the mountains beyond had not been taken 
 by settlers. Our young ranchman explained that 
 
84 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 the valley which looked to be about eight miles 
 across was really thirty miles wide, and that it was 
 too far from water for people to settle there. I 
 looked over the immense stretches of the valley 
 and at the masses of tall, spiky tree-yuccas, and 
 wished that some way might be found to irrigate 
 those thousands of acres. If some modern Moses 
 could strike water from a rock, which would flow 
 through Antelope Valley, our young settler would 
 someday look down upon hundreds of houses and 
 white tents instead of upon lonely forests of yucca. 
 
 We drove on from Neenach to the top of the 
 grade, some 4230 feet. Huge round-shouldered 
 hills, bare and lonely, rose on each side of us. Com- 
 ing to the Lebec ranch house, we asked shelter for 
 the night. These ranch houses are very hospitable 
 and are willing to take the place of a hotel so far as 
 they are able. We found the head of the house in 
 some confusion and anxiety. His cook had left 
 that morning and the settlement school ma’am had 
 offered to help with the cooking in the emergency. 
 One of the ranchmen volunteered to make the bed 
 in our sleeping room, although he confessed that 
 he had never made a bed in all his life before. We 
 ate our supper with the ranchmen, sitting at an oil- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 85 
 
 cloth-covered table. We had hunks of cold meat, 
 noodle soup with very thick, hearty noodles, stewed 
 dried peaches, sliced onions, stewed tomatoes, and 
 good bread and coffee. After a talk before a blaz- 
 ing open fire with two young electric engineers who, 
 like ourselves, had sought shelter for the night, we 
 had a dreamless night’s slumber. 
 
 In the morning we had a most interesting break- 
 fast with a long table full of hungry ranchmen. 
 Next us sat a big fellow who was in a rather pessi- 
 mistic mood. He spoke sadly of California and its 
 resources and very warmly of Virginia. “That’s 
 the place to live!” he said. “You can drive for a 
 hundred miles here and not see a ranch house or a 
 schoolhouse or a church worth looking at. In Vir- 
 ginia it’s just like, as a fellow says, ‘every drink 
 you take, things look different.’ You drive up on 
 a knoll, and you see before you a lovely farm with 
 a nice farmhouse, and a well-built barn and out- 
 houses. Then you drive over another knoll, and 
 you see another nice farmhouse. Virginia and the 
 East for me ! In this country you can walk through 
 foxtail grass until you’re ruined, and you see no 
 buildings worth looking at.” This started ani- 
 mated discussion as to the merits of California com- 
 
86 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 pared with the merits of Eastern farming country, 
 the young school ma’am vibrating between the little 
 kitchen and the dining room and taking her part 
 in the conversation. She was from Indiana, and told 
 me that while she hked Cahfornia she did not ap- 
 prove of California’s neglect of history in the pub- 
 lic schools. She felt that the children were given 
 no knowledge of ancient or of modern history in 
 the teaching scheme. She assured me that her own 
 pupils were taught history very faithfully. 
 
 We were sorry to leave the ranch with its low 
 houses and its pretty lake in the foreground. We 
 drove on down the Pass, coming over rather precip- 
 itous roads to a last steep slope from whose height 
 we looked off to an immense level valley which 
 seemed to stretch away forever. Violet morning 
 lights hung over it and it looked like an enchanted 
 country. This was our first view of the San Joa- 
 quin Valley, through which we were to drive for 
 many miles. 
 
 As we began to cross the valley, coming first 
 through rather dull, scrubby stretches, I saw acres 
 of a delicate pink and white bell-shaped flower, 
 somewhat like a morning glory, growing close to 
 the ground, blooming luxuriantly in the midst of a 
 
1., 2. and 3. Cowboy Games at Bakersfleld. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 87 
 
 whorl of green leaves. I later asked a country woman 
 the name of the flower, but she could only tell 
 me that they called the lovely delicate things sand 
 flowers. As we approached Bakersfield the land 
 grew richer and the grass was thicker and greener. 
 Meadow larks were flying about in great numbers, 
 singing their sweet, clear song. At Bakersfield we 
 stopped at the New Southern Hotel, which is, like 
 most W estern hotels, European in plan. W e found 
 a delightful cafeteria known as the Clock Tower 
 Cafeteria, kept by two women, and with most ap- 
 petizing home cooking. Bakersfield is one of the 
 most Western of California towns. Something in 
 the swing of its citizens as they walk along, some- 
 thing in the wide sombreros and high boots which 
 the visiting cowboys wear imparts a general breezi- 
 ness and Western atmosphere. It is a little town 
 with the clothes of a big town. It has very wide 
 streets and is laid out on a generous scale. Its fine 
 Courthouse, its beautiful new schoolhouse, its 
 pretty homes, its residence streets with their rows 
 of blooming oleanders, pink and white, make it an 
 attractive town. But it must be confessed that it is 
 very hot in Bakersfield, as it is in most towns of the 
 San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys. The most 
 
88 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 interesting thing to me in Bakersfield was a leather 
 shop, where I saw handsome Mexican saddles, very 
 intricately and ornately stamped. These are made 
 to order and have any amount of beautiful work 
 upon them. At the same shop I saw handsome 
 stamped belts and leather coin cases, long leather 
 cuffs which cowboys affect, and tall riding boots 
 with ornate stitching. When we left Bakersfield 
 we saw just outside the town a perfect forest of oil 
 derricks towering into the air, some of the wells be- 
 ing new ones, others having been abandoned. Ba- 
 kersfield is the center of a rich oil territory, from 
 which much wealth has flowed. 
 
 In leaving the town we turned by mistake to the 
 right instead of to the left, and found ourselves trav- 
 eling toward a Grand Canyon on a minature scale. 
 We were driving over lonely country where the wa- 
 ter had worn the hills into fantastic shapes and 
 where the whole country was a series of terraces. 
 Sometimes small tablelands stood up boldly be- 
 fore us, sometimes cone-shaped pieces of plateau, 
 like small volcanoes, appeared in long rows beyond 
 us. Beautiful purple mists and shadows hung over 
 these carvings of nature as the sun began to decline. 
 The country grew lonelier and wilder, and we de- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY. 89 
 
 cided that we must retrace our journey and find 
 out where we were. As we came near to Bakers- 
 field again we saw the camp of an engineer who was 
 making some borings for oil. He told us that we 
 had taken the wrong turn and directed us on our 
 way, past the tall derricks and northeast to Tu- 
 lare. 
 
 So we turned our backs on the browns, yellows, 
 and slate colors, the pinks and the lavenders of the 
 lonely tableland country and struck north along a 
 very fair road. We drove for twenty miles through 
 rather level, brown, desert country, coming then 
 into a grain country. All along there were pump 
 houses on the ranehes, connected with the electric 
 current by heavy wires which ran from the main 
 lines along the road to the little houses in the fields. 
 I hked to think that the magic current streamed 
 down those side wires from the main river of elec- 
 tricity, worked the pumps and brought up the wa- 
 ter that made the whole country the fertile, grain- 
 growing region it evidently was. We ate supper 
 at the McFarland Hotel some twenty-five miles 
 from Bakersfield. Our Wisconsin hostess who 
 talked with us while her Japanese cook prepared 
 our supper told us that three years ago there were 
 
90 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 only a few people living in tents in this region. 
 Now the wells are down and there is a prosperous 
 httle town, the water being found only thirty feet 
 below the surface. We came on through more fields 
 of ripe wheat and green alfalfa. We saw one set- 
 tler’s tent pitched in the midst of a beautiful al- 
 mond orchard, with great stacks of alfalfa near by. 
 His wellhouse was near, and some day in the golden 
 future he will undoubtedly build his dwelling. 
 
 Eleven miles from Tulare a tall country hoy 
 came out from the shadows as we passed through a 
 little village and asked if he might ride to Tulare 
 with us. We tucked away his bulky newspaper 
 bundle in the machine and gave him permission to 
 sit on the tool box, which was fastened on the rim- 
 ning-board. He thanked us warmly when we 
 reached the quiet streets of Tulare and offered to 
 pay us, but of course we assured him that we were 
 glad to have given him a lift. We did not often do 
 this as we were always afraid some one would be 
 hurt in riding on the running-board. We had a 
 comfortable room at the Hotel St. Maxon, and 
 drove on the next day through the fertile val- 
 ley to Fresno. Now we were in the region of rich 
 vineyards and luxuriant fig trees. For the first 
 
1. Old Grizzly, Mariposa Big Trees. 2. Old Sunset, Mariposa 
 Big Trees. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 91 
 
 time, as we approached Fresno, I saw whole or- 
 chards of fig trees. Fresno is a pretty town with 
 the wide, bright streets and look of prosperity of 
 so many California towns. It is the home of sev- 
 eral thousand Armenian and Greek workers. Only 
 that morning the Young Women’s Christian Asso- 
 ciation had welcomed to Fresno a little woman who 
 had come all the way from Constantinople to meet 
 her husband. The town pays the price for being the 
 seat of the raisin industry by being very hot in 
 summer. 
 
 From Fresno we drove across somewhat uninter- 
 esting country, rolling and solitary, diversified only 
 by grain fields and stacks of alfalfa, to Madera. 
 At Madera we turned our faces toward the high 
 Sierras, going on to Raymond with a view to driv- 
 ing over the mountain road to Wawona, one of the 
 gates of the Yosemite and very near to the famous 
 Mariposa Grove of Big Trees. 
 
92 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 When we reached Raymond we had left the val- 
 leys behind us and were in the rough country pre- 
 ceding the long climb up through the high Sierras 
 to Wawona. It was late afternoon, and as we 
 drove along we enjoyed the wooded hills and the 
 far views over deep gulleys to the mountains be- 
 yond, in the afternoon sunshine. We met but few 
 people on the steep, rocky mountain road. At one 
 point we passed a roadside group of campers for 
 the night. They had unharnessed their weary 
 horses, had built a fire, and were preparing their 
 supper. The water-trough used by travelers was 
 close by, and they had pure spring water for their 
 needs. There were two families, with a host of 
 children, going up into the pine woods to one of the 
 sawmills where the men were to work. The young 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 93 
 
 mother of one family had with her a little three- 
 weeks-old baby, fat and rosy-looking as his proud 
 father held him before the fire. The poor mother 
 was very weary and disheartened. “I am not used 
 to this,” she said, as she folded up some bits of 
 clothing that she had been washing for the chil- 
 dren. The wagons looked as if furniture and 
 clothing had been piled in “higgledy pigglety.” 
 The children and their parents slept as best they 
 could on top of this lumpy mass. One little girl 
 of twelve or so had a tear-stained face and a look 
 of real suffering in her blue eyes. She had hurt her 
 ankle in running up and down the mountain roads 
 with the other children. I felt sorry for the poor 
 phild, as it was evident that her sprained ankle 
 would have little care in this itinerant household. 
 We were glad that the tired company had the mild 
 evening air in which to lie down and rest. 
 
 As we went on, the scenery grew wilder and the 
 road grew rougher. Something ailed our machine, 
 too. It transpired that we had a bad spark plug 
 and there was nothing for it but to return to Ray- 
 mond and have things put right in the little gar- 
 age there. We did so and then we made the foolish 
 mistake of deciding to go on, although the shadows 
 
94 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 were deepening, toward Wawona. So once more 
 we climbed the narrow, rutted mountain road. It 
 was astonishing how fast the twilight fell. We had 
 thought that we still had a good hour before dark- 
 ness came on, but it grew dark alarmingly fast, 
 and we were soon driving along in forest blackness 
 over the uneven road. We kept the horn going for 
 fear of meeting something around the sharp cor- 
 ners which were so numerous, but the road was ut- 
 terly lonely. Tall pines stood close to the road- 
 side, the lamps of the motor throwing a light here 
 and there upon their massive trunks. Clusters of 
 manzanita branches brushed against our machine, 
 the light flashing upon them, showing their lovely 
 green leaves arranged like shining rosettes around 
 their wine-colored stems. Everything was wet 
 with recent rain and wonderfully beautiful as the 
 light of the lamps flashed here and there. At last 
 we passed a little cottage by the roadside. There 
 was a dim light in the house. The door opened and 
 the flgure of a man appeared dark against the 
 background of the lighted room. We called out 
 to him and asked how much farther Miami Lodge 
 was. “Just a few miles,” he said, and very kindly 
 offered to telephone to the Lodge that we were com- 
 
Summit of Pass between Raymond and Wawona, entering Yosemite Valley. 2. Miami Lodge, 
 
 on way to Yosemite. 
 
library 
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 university of ILUHOlb 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 95 
 
 ing, so they would have some supper for us. It 
 seemed a long distance to us as we crept cautiously 
 around the shoulder of the mountain, down steep 
 pitches and up long slopes. But at last we saw 
 the welcome lights of the Lodge. How pleasant 
 it was to see an open fire in the sitting room, to eat 
 a hot supper in the delightful dining room, and to 
 find a dainty sleeping room furnished with a wo- 
 man’s taste. Miami Lodge is a half-way house 
 between Raymond and Wawona. It is an ideal 
 resting spot for people who love the pine woods 
 and the quiet and solitude of the forest. 
 
 In the morning we were on our way to the Big 
 Trees. We decided to leave our car at a humble 
 but very pleasant little forest inn called Fish Camp 
 Hotel, presided over by some Maine people who 
 long ago left the pines of Maine for the pines of 
 California. They have a moimtain ranch which 
 they leave in the summer to come up into the higher 
 forests and to keep a little hostel and grocery store. 
 It is a long walk from Fish Camp Hotel to the 
 boundary fence of the National Park where the 
 famous Big Trees are. If one prefers to drive 
 one’s car over a somewhat rocky but perfectly pas- 
 sable mountain road and to leave it just outside 
 
96 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 the fence, one can do so. In this way, one’s walk- 
 ing powers are kept fresh for the memorable expe- 
 dition among the Big Trees. One needs a long 
 day in which to see the Trees. We felt sorry for 
 the tourists who were being driven about and 
 who had only an allotted time in which to see the 
 Trees. We had our luncheon with us and were in- 
 dependent. We walked miles along the Park 
 drives. We stood under the Trees, of which there 
 are some five hundred, gazing up at their distant 
 tops. We amused ourselves by measuring their 
 enormous girths with our arms. Most of the time 
 we simply gazed at them from one vantage point 
 and another, lost in wonder at their height, so much 
 greater than we had dreamed, and at their bulk, so 
 enormous as to be difficult to take in. The Big 
 Trees were far bigger, far grander, far more beau- 
 tiful in their coloring than we had been prepared 
 for. When the afternoon sunlight struck their 
 trunks and they glowed with the wonderful soft, 
 deep red which is their color, we were enchanted. 
 We felt awed, too, not only by their great size, but 
 by their great age. We were in the presence of 
 hoary old men, a detached little company of An- 
 cients who were living long, long before our gen- 
 
Camp Ahwahnee, Yosemite Valley. 2. Grizzly Giant, Mariposa Big Trees. 3. Yosemite Falls. 
 
 4. Cabin in Mariposa Grove. 
 
LIBRARY 
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 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 97 
 
 eration ever came upon the scene, and who had 
 passed through much of the world’s history. It 
 was with a glowing sense of satisfaction and happi- 
 ness and wonder that we came away from our leis- 
 urely day among the Trees. Some day we hope to 
 go back and to repeat that experience. 
 
 We met later a gentleman who said that he had 
 spent such a day, had had a supper with the forest 
 keeper who sells photographs and souvenirs in his 
 little cottage, and then had lain down to sleep on 
 the pine needles under the great Trees themselves. 
 “I saw the stars pinnacled in their branches,” 
 said he. 
 
 We had a comfortable night at Fish Camp Ho- 
 tel, our fellow guests at the next table being a party 
 of Scotch stone-cutters who had come up for a hol- 
 iday from the granite quarry at Raymond where 
 they were quarrying and shaping stones for some 
 Sacramento public buildings. Bagpipes came out 
 in the evening and the air was full of Scotch music 
 and Scotch jokes. The next morning we drove on 
 to Wawona, passing over the height of the grade 
 and descending a little to come into the lovely Wa- 
 wona meadows, in whose midst stands the old white 
 wooden hotel which has dispensed delightful hospi- 
 
98 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 tality under the same landlords for forty years 
 past. Mr. Washburn is the only one left of the 
 brothers who built up the Wawona Hotel, and his 
 son now bears the burden of the hotel administra- 
 tion. 
 
 People are always coming and going at Wa- 
 wona. They are either on their way to the Yosem- 
 ite; or having seen the Yosemite they are on their 
 way out with a look at the Big Trees, eight miles 
 away, as they pass by. We left our machine at the 
 Wawona garage and took the 12 o’clock stage 
 drawn by four splendid horses, to drive through the 
 meadow and along the mountain for thirty miles to 
 the Yosemite Valley. Later, the Wawona road 
 was to be opened to motor travel. But the leis- 
 urely way of approach by the stage was very agree- 
 able. The drive ran through the forest. We saw 
 a pheasant in the bracken by the roadside with her 
 brood of little ones. She walked with her head high, 
 affecting a careless dignity to hide her anxiety, 
 while her babies crouched close to the ground and 
 looked like little brown dots as they skimmed along. 
 
 In the late afternoon, we saw a coyote out for his 
 supper. Our stage driver cracked his whip at him 
 and shouted his contempt. We saw the beautiful 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 99 
 
 deer cross and recross the road, coming down to 
 their drinking places. They are protected by the 
 State and come and go with only the mountain lion 
 to frighten them. And at last after twenty miles 
 of drive through tall pines we came to the famous 
 Inspiration Point where the first view of the Val- 
 ley burst upon us. We had been driving over a 
 high plateau, and now we were to descend more than 
 a thousand feet into the deep cut which forms the 
 Yosemite. Our stage driver evidently took a gen- 
 uine pleasure, the pleasure of the showman, in rein- 
 ing up his horses at the psychological moment and 
 allowing us to drink in the view that hurst dramat- 
 ically upon us. There was the green level floor of 
 the Valley far below us; there was El Capitan ris- 
 ing in massive grandeur, a sheer wall of rock, in 
 evening greys and lavenders, above the Valley; 
 there was the Bridal Veil — a silver thread of water 
 falling six hundred feet. And beyond were the 
 Valley walls rising in the distance. In my opinion 
 everyone who wishes to have the most striking en- 
 trance to the Yosemite should come in by the Wa- / 
 wona road, and have the great view at Inspiration 
 Point fire the imagination first. A little lower 
 down, we came again on the winding road to the 
 
100 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 same view, only from a lower vantage point and 
 therefore more intimate. This point is known as 
 Artists’ Point; and after this we were hurrying 
 down the mountain slope, the eager horses well 
 aware that they were approaching food and rest. 
 
 Soon we were on the Valley floor, walls rising to 
 the left and right of us, and ahead of us. Behind 
 us was the way out of the Valley and above us was 
 the mountain road by which we had just come 
 down. Tourists were dropped at various camps, 
 and we drove on to Camp Curry, the last stopping 
 point of the stage. The Yosemite Valley is some- 
 what hke a blind alley. It has but one entrance on 
 the level of the Valley floor. As you drive to the 
 farther end of the Valley, you become aware that 
 you are approaching nearer and nearer to moun- 
 tain walls, and ere long you are literally against a 
 barrier, all the way from a thousand to three or 
 four thousand feet in height. Anyone who would 
 leave the Yosemite by other than the entrance on 
 the VaUey level at its one end must climb. Camp 
 Curry has the great advantage of being located in 
 the closed end of the valley and thus very near to 
 many of the mountain trails. Its proprietor and 
 landlord has built up Camp Curry to be the big. 
 
1. Driving Home the Cows. 2. Meeting in the Great American Desert. 
 3. Bridal Veil from Artist’s Point, Yosemite Valley. 
 
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 UNIVERSfiy Or ILLINOI 
 
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 cosmopolitan, happy, democratic settlement that it 
 now is. The food in the dining pavilion is plain but 
 well cooked, and abundantly served in family fash- 
 ion. The little tents with their two single beds are 
 very comfortable. The camp fire at night, around 
 which almost the entire camp assembles in that in- 
 timacy and yet detachment, which belongs to those 
 who dream before a camp fire, is the heart of the 
 camp life, where Mr. Curry gives nightly a family 
 talk on trees, rocks, flowers, and trails. Hot water 
 is a plentiful luxury at Camp Curry, and the host 
 often says, “Camp Curry is on the water wagon, but 
 it is a hot water wagon.” 
 
 “A year ago,” says Mr. Curry, “we put up 10,000 
 lunches — ^that meant 20,000 wooden plates, and 
 some 50,000 pieces of white tissue paper. You can 
 see how necessary it is to burn or bury your limch- 
 eon papers when you have eaten your lunch on the 
 trails, or in the forests.” 
 
 Never in any other place in the United States 
 have I heard so much talk of tramps and trails as 
 at Camp Curry in the Yosemite Valley. Most 
 Americans seem to be too indolent or too unused 
 to walking to have the enthusiasm of the trampers 
 and the mountain climbers whom one meets in Eu- 
 
102 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 rope. But I felt that I was back in the atmosphere 
 of the Tyrol and of Switzerland when I reached 
 Camp Curry and saw the people starting off in the 
 morning for long days of walking and climbing. 
 “I arrived at Camp Curry late in the afternoon just 
 as the people were coming from their day’s walks,” 
 said a young lady to me. “I thought I had never 
 seen such disreputable looking people. Their boots 
 were muddy, their hair was dishevelled, their faces 
 were flushed and sunburnt. But in a day or two I 
 was coming in from long walks in just the same 
 condition myself.” But who that can walk and 
 climb would forego the thrilling pleasure of the 
 long climb to Glacier Point, and the long climb past 
 Nevada and Vernal Falls, and down again into the 
 Valley? Who would miss the long climb up to the 
 .Yosemite Falls, where one from a perilous and yet 
 protected vantage point just above the Falls sees 
 that great volume of water launch itself for the 
 awful plunge into the air, and so down into the 
 Valley? Fortunately, there are sturdy mules and 
 horses, sure-footed and plodding, for those who 
 prefer riding to climbing. No one need miss the 
 truly grand experience of the view from Glacier 
 Point, where by staying over night at the hotel one 
 

 0 ^ 
 
 
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 may have both sunset and sunrise. What a world 
 of mountains one looks out upon! There is Half 
 Dome, looking as if a gigantic hand had thrust it 
 up through the earth and into the air, leaving its 
 other half far, far below. There stretches before 
 one a vast, upper country of irregular table lands 
 and peaks, many still white with snow. One is 
 really looking far out over the remote regions of 
 the snowy, pine-covered, high Sierras. 
 
 We took a day for a long excursion to 
 Cloud’s Rest. This meant twenty-two miles of 
 mule riding, but it also meant an even more com- 
 prehensive and exalted view from the mountain’s 
 top, of frozen lakes below, deep canyons, lofty 
 mountain peaks where storms were raging far away, 
 and solitary table lands. Only people of endur- 
 ance can take such a jaunt, as one’s joints grow 
 very weary and aching from the slow riding hour 
 after hour. When we were at Camp Curry, a party 
 of some forty Germans, men and women, were 
 there for the pleasure of “doing” the entire Valley. 
 N o climb was too hard for them. They were known 
 as the “German climbing bunch.” Every morning 
 one might see them with their paper bags of lunch- 
 eon and their climbing-sticks, walking gaily along 
 
104 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 to the beginning of some one of the mountains 
 trails. They entertained us at the evening camp 
 fire with their German songs, and were altogether 
 an energetic and genial company. 
 
 The open air life and the grandeur of the trails 
 were very hard to leave, but we came away one noon 
 and once more drove back to Wawona. There we 
 were detained for a week by a break in the car. We 
 started out one morning when the rain was pouring 
 to take the Mariposa road. We found that with 
 no chains and with the machine slipping and slid- 
 ing on the steep clay road, progress would be im- 
 possible. I tried to help the matter by putting 
 freshly cut branches of odorous balsam fir under 
 the wheels to help them grip. I walked behind the 
 machine with a log, throwing it under the wheels 
 as they advanced foot by foot, T. fighting at the 
 steering wheel like the pilot of a drifting ship. 
 !]^ut it was impossible to make headway. We met 
 some teamsters who had evidently been taking 
 something hot to counteract the discomfort of their 
 wet exteriors. One said solemnly of the sun when 
 we expressed a wish that it would appear, “Yes, 
 the sun is our father, and our step-father.” Then 
 he added, “I’d worship the sun if I were a heathen. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 105 
 
 I kinder do, now.” He went on irrelevantly, “I do 
 think Roosevelt’s one of the best men we’ve got. 
 I do think so. I do so.” We were close to a de- 
 serted logging camp, which looked doubly melan- 
 choly in the falling rain. There was the deserted 
 runway, there were the empty cottages, with broken 
 windows and doors swinging open. Back of the 
 cottages were piles of tin cans. One cottage still 
 bore its old name, “Idle Burg.” All about were 
 blooming columbines and the odorous balsam. 
 
 There W'as nothing for it but to go back to Wa- 
 wona, which we did. When we reached there, we 
 found that we had a broken spring. We spent 
 several days waiting for a new spring to come up 
 from Raymond. In the meantime we discovered 
 the loveliness of the Wawona meadows and ex- 
 plored the walks about the hotel. We went down 
 to the blacksmith shop to see the big stage horses 
 shod and the smith handle them as if they were his 
 children. “California is God’s country,” said he. 
 “I came here forty years ago, but I aint done much 
 for myself imtil the last two or three years.” At 
 last the motor car was ready, and we had once more 
 a drive through the forest, stopping for a delightful 
 dinner and evening at Miami Lodge. The next 
 
106 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 day we were dropping down from the high Sierras 
 by the Mariposa road. Turning to the right, be- 
 fore reaching Raymond, the foothills of the Sierras 
 made very rough, broken country for travel, and 
 our road was indifferent. We passed poor httle 
 ranches dropped in among the rocks and gulleys. 
 We saw lonely looking women sitting on the 
 porches of unpainted wooden ranch houses, and 
 finally we came to Mariposa, which reminded me 
 of Bret Harte more than any other place I had seen 
 in California. 
 
 Mariposa is a mining town from which the miners 
 have departed. In mining days it was a busy cen- 
 ter, with miners eating and drinking, and walking 
 up and down its little street. But some of the mines 
 have been closed, the miners have gone to other dis- 
 tricts, and the town is left high and dry. A few 
 men were hanging idly about in front of the dreary 
 looking little stores. The two places that seemed 
 to be alive were a general department store kept by 
 an Italian, and a little restaurant kept by a China- 
 man. We bought our gasoline from Mr. Trabucco 
 and went in to have some tea at John Chinaman’s 
 place. He was a shrewd looking, middle-aged Chi- 
 naman in a, very pessimistic mood. “You see dis 
 
!| 
 
 ! 
 
 In the Lower 
 
I 
 
 LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 107 
 
 town? You see more’n I do,” he said sadly. We 
 assured him that we saw very little town. Indeed, 
 Mariposa is just the sad little shell of a town from 
 which most of the life has moved away, leaving the 
 dingy little wooden buildings along the dusty 
 street. Our Chinaman charged us fifteen cents 
 apiece for a single cup of tea, flanked by some very 
 stale store cookies, which he took from the show 
 window. He evidently felt that he should make hay 
 while the sun was shining. From Mariposa, we had 
 a long afternoon drive over lonely, rolling covm- 
 try to Snelling. When we reached its one little 
 hotel, we found that we were too late for supper. 
 California has an eight hour law, and domestic ser- 
 vants cannot be kept over time. In large hotels 
 they have different shifts; but in coimtry places 
 the landlord must let his cook go at the ap- 
 pointed time. However, our host was disposed to 
 be accommodating. “The missus and I are always 
 here,” he said, and went over to buy a bit of steak 
 for our supper. We were very tired after the ex- 
 tremely rough driving in the foothills, and slept 
 heavily. 
 
 Snelling lies in a valley where there is evidently 
 plenty of warmth and water. The fig trees are 
 
108 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 wonderfully luxuriant. We passed some beautiful 
 grain ranches the next morning and so came to 
 Stockton, where at the Hotel Stockton we saw the 
 red, white, and blue sign that was to guide us across 
 the continent. We were at last on the Lincoln 
 Highway, the old road with the new name which 
 rims from ocean to ocean and which is destined to 
 be one of the famous highways of the world. 
 
 The Stockton Inn is a beautiful modern hostel, 
 European in plan, with every convenience, not to 
 say luxury. One should go up on its roof garden 
 for an afternoon cup of tea just for the pleasure of 
 looking down on the San Joaquin River, whose 
 headwaters run up into the town. Boats lie all 
 along the piers, and it looks very like a bit of 
 Holland. I could have easily believed that I was 
 looking down on an Amsterdam canal from 
 the roof garden of the Stockton Hotel. All 
 through California, but more particularly between 
 Monterey and Los Angeles and along the coast, 
 we had seen workmen tramping from place to place, 
 sometimes alone, usually in bands of six or seven. 
 They carried their blankets rolled on their backs, 
 and many of them were clear-eyed, respectable 
 looking men. We saw one such man in Stockton 
 

 Hotel. 2. Head of San Joaquin River, 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 109 
 
 on his way to take the river boat. He had his 
 blanket on his back, and he wore a somewhat bat- 
 tered straw hat. His trousers were ragged, and 
 he looked as if he had tramped many a weary mile. 
 He was tall and bony, with a sandy beard. I took 
 him to be a Scot. I was so anxious to help the poor 
 fellow out that I urged T. to speak to him and offer 
 him a suit of clothes. To our surprise the man re- 
 fused them in a very free and easy, genial way. “O, 
 nay, thank you,” he said, “I’m doin’ all right.” 
 
 Stockton is a city with wide streets, an open 
 plaza, and a Comthouse surrounded by a bor- 
 der of green lawn and pahn trees. I saw a tur- 
 baned Hindoo lying asleep under a palm tree in 
 the afternoon sun on the Courthouse lawn. White 
 men lay asleep near him. It was at Stockton that 
 we saw our first rodeo or roimd-up. The rodeo is 
 a part professional and part amateur Wild-West 
 show. The cowboys wear their gayest shirts, of 
 red and pink and variegated silks. They wear their 
 handsomest “chaps” or riding trousers, cut very 
 wide, and made of buckskin or of sheepskin with 
 the wool side out. They have on their widest- 
 brimmed, highest crowned sombreros and their 
 most ornately stitched boots. The cowgirls are 
 
110 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 in brown or grey velveteen, or perhaps in khaki. 
 They, too, wear broad-brimmed hats and riding 
 boots with spurs. Some of them wear red silk hand- 
 kerchiefs knotted about their necks. We saw such 
 an exhibition of cattle lassoing and of roping and 
 throwing steers, of rope spinning and of trick rid- 
 ing as we had never before seen. Doubtless it is an 
 old story for Californians, but it was all new and 
 interesting to us. The most interesting feat was 
 the roping and throwing of a steer. Two men ride 
 down the steer, and as one of them approaches the 
 beast he slips off his horse and catches the steer 
 with a lightning stroke around his neck. He en- 
 deavors by casting his weight on the beast’s neck 
 and by dexterously twisting it to throw the animal. 
 Usually he succeeds; but sometimes a stubborn 
 beast refuses to be taken by surprise, plants his 
 feet firmly, and lowers his dangerous horns. Then 
 follows a locked struggle, and it is a serious matter 
 for the cattleman if his hold slips. 
 
and 2. Cowboy Rodeo, Stockton, Cal. 3. Hereford Bull, Wyoming. 4. Cowboy Rodeo, 
 
 Laramie, Wyoming. 
 
/ 
 
 LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 111 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 When we left Stockton we felt that the great 
 adventure had really begun. We were now to tra- 
 verse the Lincoln Highway and were to be guided 
 by the red, white, and blue marks; sometimes 
 painted on telephone poles, sometimes put up by 
 way of advertisement over garage doors or swing- 
 ing on hotel signboards; sometimes painted on lit- 
 tle stakes, like croquet goals, scattered along over 
 the great spaces of the desert. We learned to love 
 the red, white, and blue, and the familiar big L 
 which told us that we were on the right road. Had 
 we taken the Lincoln Highway literally from ocean 
 to ocean, we should have driven direct from San 
 Francisco to Stockton. As it was we saw Cali- 
 fornia first, and came in at Stockton. 
 
 It was a bright, sunny day, the thirteenth of 
 
112 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 June, when we left Stockton for Sacramento. We 
 drove along an excellent asphalt road, through 
 grain fields and orchards, the almond orchards 
 being loaded with their green, velvety fruit. It 
 was late afternoon when we reached our hostel, the 
 Sacramento Hotel. Sacramento is even to-day 
 more or less a frontier town. Judging by appear- 
 ances, there are more saloons in proportion to the 
 other shops of Sacramento than in any other town 
 in California, unless it he San Francisco. The town 
 is well shaded. One sees many wooden buildings of 
 old-fashioned architecture, the old mansard roof be- 
 ing much in evidence. A most pleasant spot in Sac- 
 ramento is the beautifully kept park around the fine 
 State House. Its walks are shaded by a fine row 
 of palms, another of magnolias which were in full 
 bloom, and yet another of beautiful old cedars. I 
 liked the “Sacramento Bee” building which has two 
 interesting has reliefs of printers of the Middle 
 Ages working a hand press. Sacramento is very 
 hot in summer, its stone pavements and asphalt 
 streets radiating heat like an open oven. 
 
 Leaving Sacramento, we drove across rolling 
 plains, mostly grain fields, to Folsom. From Fol- 
 som to the busy little town of Placerville we had 
 
Philips Hotel on Lincoln Highway near Lake Tahoe. 2. View on Lake Tahoe. 3. Looking up 
 Yosemite Valley. 4. Upper Yosemite Falls. 
 

 OF THE 
 UNlVERSiTY OF 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 113 
 
 more broken country and a decidedly bumpy road. 
 We found the drive from Folsom to Placerville 
 uninteresting, the forest being scrubby, the road 
 dry and dusty. As soon as we left Placerville we 
 came into beautiful coimtry. We had stretches of 
 distant mountain views and magnificent wooded 
 hills all about us. A mountain stream, the Ameri- 
 can River, green and foaming, roared alongside 
 the road. The road was in excellent condition and 
 ran on through the forest for miles, flanked by 
 sugar pines, cedars, firs, balsams, and yellow pines. 
 Squirrels darted back and forth in front of us. The 
 wild white lilac was blooming at the roadside. 
 Ascending hour by hour, we passed several pleas- 
 ant-looking mountain inns and came at last to 
 Phillips’, a simple place where they gave us, out- 
 side the main house, a tiny cottage all to ourselves. 
 It had one room and from its door we looked 
 straight away into the forest. They gave us some 
 beefsteak, some fried potatoes, some canned corn, 
 carrots, cake, custard, and tea for our supper. 
 
 We left our door open at night, that the fresh 
 mountain air might come in freely. I awoke early 
 in the morning and saw the first lights on the hills. 
 Away off in the forest I heard a hermit thrush call- 
 
114 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 ing. After breakfast we drove along through pine 
 forest, the snow on the hills not very far away, and 
 soon came to the summit of the Pass, 7395 feet. A 
 party in a Reo car had been over the Pass three 
 weeks earlier, toiling through the snow, and had 
 posted several signs, painted in flamboyant red: 
 “First car up May 25, 1914.” Below us was the 
 marshy valley surrounding the southern end of 
 Lake Tahoe. We saw the exquisite green of these 
 watery meadows and the lovely clumps of pines 
 growing here and there in the valley. Beyond 
 stretched the great lake surrounded by lofty moun- 
 tains — a glorious view. We drove carefully down 
 the steep hiU on to the plain and past Meyers. The 
 road was very sandy, and as we drove among the 
 pine trees it was in some places so narrow that the 
 hubs of our machine just cleared the tree trunks. 
 We went flrst to Tallac, where there is a very pleas- 
 ant hotel on the lake. But it was full and we turned 
 back to A1 Tahoe, a hotel in a great open space at 
 the southern end of the lake, with pine trees scat- 
 tered here and there, and a little colony of cottages 
 outside the main building. We established our- 
 selves in one of these cottages, a one-room house 
 with three wooden sides and a long curtain across its 
 
Mountain Stream in California. 2. Fallen Leaf Lake, near Lake Tahoe. 3. Mountains 
 
 around Lake Tahoe. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 115 
 
 open side. The fourth side of the building had been 
 literally lifted up and was supported by wooden 
 props. In this way it became a roof for the little 
 platform of boards which stretched in front of the 
 cottage "nd a sheltered porch was thus improvised. 
 At night we drew our calico curtain across the open 
 front of our cottage, and so slept practically in the 
 open air. 
 
 From A1 Tahoe one can make many excursions 
 on foot or by boat. As there was still snow on the 
 road we did not undertake the motor drive from A1 
 Tahoe "n Tahoe Tavern and Donner Lake. We 
 did drive the nine or ten miles of mountain road to 
 Fallen Leaf Lake, which is a most exquisite moun- 
 tain lake right under the shadow of Mt. Tallac. 
 The trails from the hotel at Fallen Leaf Lake are 
 very numerous and attract many enthusiastic moun- 
 tain climbers. The first rain that we had exper- 
 ienced in all our long journey we had at A1 Tahoe. 
 When we left our hotel early in the morning to 
 drive to Carson City the rain was still falling, but 
 it cleared within an hour after our start, and we had 
 no more rain until we reached Ohio. Lake Tahoe 
 on our left was wonderfully beautiful in the morn- 
 ing light. The rich manzanita and other bushes 
 
116 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 were shining with moisture, the tall pines were re- 
 flected in the clear depths of the lake, the shores 
 were wild and lonely. The road rose high above 
 the lake, and in one or two places ran along the 
 edge of a precipitous cliff. After leaving the lake 
 we came into a rather desolate mountain region 
 where the whole character of the country changed. 
 The road was a narrow shelf along a barren, rocky 
 mountain side. There were but few trees. The 
 color of the rock and of patches of brilliant yellow 
 flowers, growing along the roadside, gave variety 
 to the landscape. Otherwise it was somewhat 
 dreary and forbidding after the rich forest foliage 
 that we had just left along the lake. 
 
 As we rounded mountain shoulder after shoulder 
 we began to look off into green cultivated farming 
 valleys. Next we were coming down a steep hill 
 and into Nevada’s little capital town of Carson 
 City. The Capitol building stands at the foot of 
 this long hill road, and as one approaches from the 
 top of the hill it looks as if one must drive straight 
 through the Capitol. But the road turns sharply 
 to the left as one reaches the Capitol street. This 
 one long street with its hotel, its pleasant shops, and 
 
Lincoln Highway near Donner Lake. Donner Lake in distance. 
 
4 
 
 
 
 
 of 
 
 w.ai'' 
 
 
 I' 
 
by; the LINCOLN HIGHWAY; 117 
 
 its Capitol is about all there is of the town. We 
 drove through the town straight on to Reno. 
 
 Reno is a pleasant town, nobly situated on a high 
 plateau with lofty mountains towering near. The 
 Truckee River flows straight down from the heart 
 of the snows through the center of the town and is 
 spanned by a handsome bridge. The substantial 
 Riverside Hotel stands on the bank of the river 
 near the bridge. Somehow my impressions of Reno 
 all seem to cluster around the swift river and the 
 bridge. The library, the hotel, the Y. M. C. A., 
 and other public buildings are close to the river. 
 If you walk up the river you come to a little island 
 in the center of the rushing stream which is a tiny 
 Coney Island for the Reno residents during the 
 summer. Bridges are flung from bank to island 
 on both sides of the river. High above the river 
 rise the houses of the well-to-do people of the town, 
 some of them handsome structures. At the little 
 hairdresser’s where I had a shampoo in the delicious 
 soft snow water of the river they pointed out to 
 me the home of “om* millionaire.” So I crossed the 
 river and went over and up to the higher side of 
 the town, where was a very beautiful stucco man- 
 
118 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 sion surrounded by wide lawns, with a view over 
 the river on one side and off to the mountains on 
 the other. It was a charming situation, and its 
 charm was enhanced for me by the fact that just a 
 short distance away, outside the town, began the 
 grey-green desert with its sage brush whose pun- 
 gent, aromatic odor was to be in my nostrils for so 
 many days to come. I asked my hairdresser whether 
 Reno had many people in residence waiting for 
 their divorces. She said that the new law, by virtue 
 of which they must have a year’s residence in Ne- 
 vada, instead of the old period of six months, had 
 cut down, so to speak, the business of divorces. She 
 assured me that the Reno people deplored this as 
 formerly the town was full of boarders and lodgers 
 “doing time.” I confess I was somewhat shocked 
 by such a sordid point of view. I found myself 
 looking quietly around the Riverside dining room 
 to see whether I could pick out in the well filled 
 room any candidates for divorce, and then I re- 
 flected that they were probably looking at me with 
 the same query in their minds. 
 
 At Reno we followed our rule of visiting imi- 
 versity buildings. We had seen the famous State 
 University and the equally famous Stanford Uni- 
 
Crossing Mississippi at Clinton, Iowa. 2. Bridge near Reno. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 119 
 
 versity in California, and wished to continue oiu: 
 study of college buildings and of the general atmos- 
 phere of Western institutions. Unfortunately it 
 was holiday time, but we were shown about most 
 courteously by a young instructor. The Nevada 
 State University buildings are modest and compar- 
 atively few in number, but in good taste. They 
 have a fine situation on a high plateau, wind-swept 
 and mountain-surrounded, at the edge of the town. 
 Westerners call these lofty terraces, which drop 
 down one below another in step fashion at the foot 
 of the great mountains, benches. 
 
 We had seen the very noble School of Mines at 
 the University of California, erected by Mrs. 
 Hearst to her husband’s memory. We were equally 
 interested in the smaller but very pretty building 
 erected by Mr. Clarence Mackay for the Univer- 
 sity of Nevada School of Mines. A striking statue 
 of Mr. Mackay in his miner’s dress and with his 
 miner’s pick, stands in front of the building and 
 looks down the green lengths of the open campus. 
 
 Our guide told us that the attendance at the 
 School of Mines varies annually with the fluctua- 
 tions of mining fortunes. In good years when the 
 mines are doing well, the University has between 
 
120 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 fifty and sixty students of mining engineering. 
 In poor mining years the attendance drops off. 
 He told us some interesting tales of the “good old 
 days” when miners wore two shirts sewed together 
 at the bottom, thus making a sort of bag, and helped 
 themselves liberally to gold while in the diggings. 
 He said that a miner had been known to pay a 
 mine foreman a thousand dollars for the privilege 
 of working in a rich corner of the mine, with the 
 result that he would be able to make up the price 
 of his privilege within two or three days. He ex- 
 plained that there was a general rule to the effect 
 that a miner should not be stripped for examination 
 except to his shirt; with possible exceptions if he 
 were under very strong suspicion. 
 
 I was sorry to come away from Reno. I liked 
 the little town, with the sound of the rushing river 
 coming in at my hotel window, and the feeling of 
 space and freedom that the high situation gave. 
 Reno is 4500 feet above sea level. 
 
 From Reno we drove on to Fallon, a little town 
 where we spent the night. I took my last look at 
 the high Sierras as we drove across the grassy plains 
 in leaving Reno. There they were, still snowy, tow- 
 ering above the town. We came along by the river. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 121 
 
 but left it later for a more or less hilly road across 
 rather barren country. We stopped at a little 
 roadside place where there was a small grocery next 
 to a tiny dwelling, to ask for some luncheon. The 
 groceryman was very dubious and non-committal 
 and referred us to his wife. I had noticed that at 
 our approach she fled to some improvised chicken 
 coops back of the little dwelling. So I tracked 
 her to her lair and found the poor httle thing really 
 standing at bay. She was a small woman, over- 
 shadowed by an immense Mexican straw hat. She 
 said to me somewhat defiantly and almost tearfully 
 that she couldn’t possibly do another, drop of work. 
 She explained that she had the railroad men to care 
 for when they came in from the road, and that she 
 had two hundred chickens to look after. “I carry 
 all the water for them myself,” she said tearfully. 
 I looked around at the hot, dusty little settlement, 
 with no spear of grass, and felt sorry for her. I 
 told her that we wouldn’t for the world inconven- 
 ience her, whereat she softened and told me that if 
 we would drive on to the next settlement we could 
 get some luncheon. Which we did, and a very 
 indifferent luncheon it was. However, it was 
 spiced by an ardent conversation between T. and 
 
122 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 a railroad man on the foreign policy of the present 
 Administration. A woman looks on at these en- 
 counters, into which men plunge without a mo- 
 ment’s introduction or hesitation, and into which 
 they throw themselves so earnestly, with admiration 
 tinged with awe. 
 
 As we drove along the dusty road a short, rather 
 thick snake, its back marked by shining black dia- 
 monds, wriggled hurriedly across the road in front 
 of us, escaping to the sage brush. I asked later 
 what this snake was, for I felt certain that it was 
 poisonous. Sure enough, it was a diamond-backed 
 rattle snake. We came soon to another little town 
 where there was a good hotel. Hanging on the 
 wall of the hotel was a painting of the proposed 
 Lahontan Dam and the country which its life-giv- 
 ing streams would touch. We decided, instead of 
 going direct to Fallon, to drive across country to 
 the Dam, making a slight detour. We were very 
 glad that we did so, for we found the young super- 
 intendent of the Dam construction, a Brown Uni- 
 versity man, very courteous indeed. We went to 
 look at the enormous pile of sand and clay which 
 has been banked up day after day and week after 
 week until the Lahontan Dam is the largest earth 
 
Smelter near Ely, Nevada. 2. Lahontan Dam, Nevada. 
 
library 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 123 
 
 dam in the world. We saw cement spillways, one 
 on each side of the earth dam proper, their tall 
 steps planned to break the fall of the water 
 at any time of great flood and pressure. We 
 saw the lake itself with its measuring tower and 
 gate already sixty feet under the rising water. Mr. 
 Tillinghast told us that the lake stretches back into 
 the hills and the canyon for twenty miles. We 
 heard of the millions of fertile acres which this wa- 
 ter, already beginning to be released in a rushing 
 stream, was to make possible. Some miles back 
 we had seen irrigated country, green and fertile, 
 cut, so to speak, right out of the desert. Alfalfa 
 was growing luxuriantly and was being cured in 
 high green stacks under the sun. Settlers’ little cot- 
 tages were a visible promise of the future, just as 
 they had been in California. We congratulated 
 Mr. Tillinghast on his work, and told him that in 
 days to come he should bring his grandchildren to 
 see the Lahontan Dam, a splendid monument to his 
 work and the work of the men with him. 
 
 We saw where he and his assistant engineer lived 
 with their families. They had small but comforta- 
 ble quarters made of houses built of tar paper. 
 Some chicken yards were near, and an improvised 
 
124 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 tennis court was in front of the little row of houses. 
 Near by was a little schoolhouse for the children of 
 the settlement. Here New England women, city 
 born and bred, were living happily with their chil- 
 dren while their husbands built the great Dam. 
 One lady told us that her relatives in Providence 
 commiserated her lot. “But,” said she, “the boys 
 are so well and live such a free and happy life in 
 this glorious air that we really dread being moved 
 to another piece of work when the Dam is finished.” 
 From Lahontan we picked our way across the des- 
 ert with its sage brush and its spaces, to Fallon. 
 
 When we left Fallon we had before us a very try- 
 ing drive. The country east of Fallon, past Salt 
 Wells Ranch and as far as Sand Springs, was in 
 bad condition because of recent heavy rains. We 
 met heavy wagons drawn by ten, twelve, fourteen, 
 and sometimes sixteen horses and mules, strug- 
 ghng madly and almost hopelessly through the 
 sticky mud. The drivers were cracking their whips, 
 yelling and swearing, and the poor animals’ flanks 
 and bellies were thick with mud. The heavy wag- 
 ons were piled high with bales and boxes. In some 
 instances the horses of one team were being unhar- 
 nessed to be added to another team where the wagon 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 125 
 
 stuck hopelessly in the mud. A country woman 
 told me later that she had seen the horses of these 
 trucking teams come in at night, their flanks cov- 
 ered with the dried blood which had streamed down 
 from the wounds made by a pitchfork in the hands 
 of a desperate and angry teamster determined to 
 get his team started out of a mud hole. 
 
 We had an advantage because of the broad tires 
 of our machine, and got on very well by picking our 
 way across the plain and keeping well to the left 
 of a long stretch filled with salt water holes and 
 with a fairly large salt lake. A new road had been 
 made by travelers, far away from the regular road, 
 which ran close to this small inland sea and which 
 was a hopeless quagmire. The land about us was 
 dreary and desolate and yet had its own charm. 
 Off to the left were immense sand hills blown up 
 by the wind, and barren, rocky hills, the Wind 
 Mountains. We came at last to the little station 
 known as Sand Springs, which is simply a lodging 
 place for the teamsters and their horses for the 
 night. We could look down from the plateau on 
 which the little house and the barns stood, upon the 
 white and clay-colored, desolate spaces of the salty 
 valley below. The landlady welcomed us cordially 
 
126 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 and gave us a plain but hearty lunch. She was a 
 Californian and told me that she and her husband 
 missed the green hills and fields of their own State. 
 She said that they had wonderful salt for curing 
 and packing their winter meats from the lake down 
 in the valley. She said that the salt could be raked 
 up in great heaps, white and coarse but with great 
 strength and savor. She was mourning the loss of 
 her cows, which had disappeared. They had been 
 gone a month and she feared that in wandering 
 away on the mountain ranges they had been driven 
 off by “cattle rustlers.” 
 
 From Sand Springs we drove on through a more 
 hilly country, the road winding along through an 
 open canyon. We passed Frenchman’s Flat, where 
 there was a little restaurant and where a French- 
 man came out to pass the time of day. He greeted 
 us very pleasantly and would doubtless have given 
 us a good meal if we had not already had one. We 
 then crossed another great level and passed three 
 ranches known as West Gate, Little Gate, and East 
 Gate. We were coming into a much more fertile 
 country, a high valley with mountains rising on 
 either side. Ahead of us, marked by its tall cotton- 
 wood trees, was Alpine Ranch, a part of the big 
 
the Lincoln Highway. 2. Ranch House at East Gate, Nev. 3. Road Scene near 
 Rawlins, Wyoming. 
 
OF 
 
 uhivehsity 
 
 OF ltUH05 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 127 
 
 Williams estate and our destination for the night. 
 It was very cheering to drive through the paddock, 
 cross a bubbling little stream, and come up along- 
 side the long, low, pleasant ranch house. 
 
 We had had as traveling companion from Fallon, 
 across the Salt Flats and through the hills, a young 
 commercial man from San Francisco driving his 
 Ford car through to Utah., We were both glad 
 to make the journey across the desert in com- 
 pany, hoping to be of mutual assistance in case of 
 any accident to our cars. Mr. N. now proposed 
 to take supper at Alpine Ranch and to travel by 
 night in order to gain time. We warned him that 
 he might get into trouble, but he assured us that 
 he often traveled at night and enjoyed the stillness 
 and the freedom to speed along. We found Mr. 
 and Mrs. Dudley of the ranch hospitable and will- 
 ing to give us bed and board. It is very pleasant 
 for those who are willing to forego luxuries to stop 
 at farm houses and ranch houses, to take the fare 
 and sleep upon the beds given them, and to enjoy 
 the talk of the people and the contact with real 
 ranch life. 
 
 We had a delightful evening with the Dudleys. 
 We ate our supper at a long table filled with ranch- 
 
128 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 men, and took part in an animated conversation on 
 the merits of the present Administration. We ate 
 from a red tablecloth, but that did not trouble us. 
 After supper, in the soft evening air, we had a talk 
 with the family as to the advantages of the govern- 
 ment ownership of railways. A woman from a 
 nearby town took an earnest share in the conversa- 
 tion and showed herself well acquainted with the 
 arguments for and against such ownership. The 
 master of the ranch told us something of his diffi- 
 culty in keeping men steadily at work on the ranch. 
 He said that they came and went constantly in 
 spite of good pay, steady work, and kindly treat- 
 ment. He said that it was very difficult to get a 
 man to stay more than two years. He would bring 
 his roll of bedding, as is Western custom, take his 
 place in the bunk house and at the table and in the 
 fields for a time, but he could not be persuaded to 
 stay long. The wandering habit had too strong a 
 grip upon him. 
 
 We went out into the ample paddock to see the 
 mules and horses roving comfortably about. Two 
 of the wild horses of the plains had recently been- 
 captured and brought in. Both were going through 
 a course of discipline which the ranchman assured 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 129 
 
 us would have to be made more severe later on. One 
 was a beautiful young mare with her colt following 
 her closely. She had a heavy yoke bar hanging by 
 a sort of collar from her neck, and so arranged as 
 to clog and trip her if she attempted to run. She 
 was peacefully wandering about, but snorted with 
 fear as we came near her. Her master assured us 
 that she could easily be tamed, and that she was not 
 to be driven or saddled, but was to be used as a bell 
 mare. That is, she was to be the leader of the herd 
 let out on the plains. The ranchman explained 
 that a company of horses will not leave a mare with 
 a young colt, consequently she is used to keep them 
 from straying away long distances. The other 
 horse was a fine animal but much less docile of 
 spirit. “I feel sorry for him,” said his master; “he 
 has got a lot to go through with, but he must learn; 
 there is no other way for him.” The animal had 
 both his fore legs and hind legs “hand” cuffed, only 
 a short chain being used on the shackles. He was 
 in this way so hobbled that he had to move by little 
 leaps forward, first his fore feet, then his hind feet. 
 By this clumsy hopping he managed to get about. 
 “He must first learn to accept this and then we will 
 go on with his education,” said his master. He 
 
130 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 looked very wild and untamed of spirit, poor fel- 
 low, and made frantic efforts to rush away as we 
 came near him. But he had already found out that 
 his cruel chains were inexorable. 
 
 We walked out into the lovely valley and toward 
 the purple hills that rose above it. One can never 
 tire of the evenings and the mornings of the great 
 W estern plains and table lands. N owhere else have 
 I seen such wonderful sunsets; glorious in crim- 
 sons, purples, violets, rose lavenders, ashes of roses, 
 and finally soft greys. Nowhere have I seen love- 
 lier dawns, the air so crystal clear, the morning 
 light so full of rose and lavender mysteries, the 
 whole day so full of wide and happy promise. 
 
 Mr. If. had insisted on going on after supper at 
 the ranch. We had seen him disappear down the 
 valley, his machine finally hidden in acres of grey- 
 green sage brush. 
 
 The next morning we drove on, passing at the end 
 of the valley through a short but rough canyon, 
 with rocky walls to the left and right. There we 
 saw a board sign marking “Water 100 feet down.” 
 Doubtless this was a boon to travelers in the old 
 days. Once through the canyon, we came out into 
 another wide valley, lonely and spacious. As we 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 131 
 
 drove along, we saw ahead of us what seemed to 
 be a small motor car by the roadside. 
 
 ‘T believe that’s N’s car!” said T. As we came up 
 to it we saw that the two left wheels were hopelessly 
 down in a deep rut. Mr. N. had stuck his card in 
 the windshield of the car, and had written on it, 
 “Gone for some boards; wait until I come back.” 
 Soon we saw him coming across the desert with 
 some loose boards in his arms. We found that the 
 poor fellow had been there from ten o’clock the 
 night before until ten o’clock in the morning, the 
 hour of our passing. He had been howling along 
 comfortably and somewhat sleepily the previous 
 night, when suddenly his car bumped into a muddy 
 rut from which he found it impossible to extricate 
 the machine. He told us that he had worked fran- 
 tically and futilely until about midnight. Then he 
 put out his lights, wrapped himself up as best he 
 could, and slept until seven. He said that utter 
 stillness and darkness were about him. “Not even 
 a jack rabbit passed.” At seven he again began to 
 struggle with his car. He had the sure hope that 
 we would come along sooner or later. He had cal- 
 culated that we would arrive about eleven. When 
 we found him he had just gone to a deserted, fall- 
 
132 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 ing ranch house to find a few boards to be used as 
 levers. He and T., taking our machine, now drove 
 to the ranch house and brought back a goodly sup- 
 ply of boards and some heavier pieces of timber 
 which they had torn from the dropping fences. 
 The boards they put in the rut in front of the wheels 
 in order that they might get a grip when once they 
 started. The heavier timbers they used as levers. 
 And so by dint of hard work and by the help of two 
 young men who passed in their motor half an hour 
 after our arrival, the front wheel was pried out of 
 the sticky mud, and the car was once more gotten 
 on firm ground. It was past one o’clock when we 
 climbed up the bare road to the high town of Austin 
 and went to the International Hotel for our lunch- 
 eon. What with lack of sleep and his long fast Mr. 
 N. was quite worn out. A good luncheon prepared 
 by a Japanese cook and served by a natty and 
 very debonair Japanese waiter put us all in better 
 trim. 
 
 Two miles beyond Austin we were 9000 feet 
 above sea level. As we reached this height we 
 could, looking back, see Austin below us. We also 
 had a fine view of the desert mountains. Here I 
 began to understand the conformation of the Ne- 
 
Cattle on Nevada Desert. 2. Deserted Mining Town in Nevada. 3. Mining town Cemetery in 
 Nevada. 4. In the Nevada Desert. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 UMIVERSiTY OF ILLINOI 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 133 
 
 vada country. We were passing from one great 
 valley into another, hour after hour. When I 
 looked on the map of Nevada, I found a series of 
 short mountain ranges. I could see what we were 
 doing in our travel. We were deseending into a 
 valley, erossing its immense width, coming up on 
 to a more or less lofty pass, usually bare, and de- 
 scending into another valley. It was very fasci- 
 nating, this rising and falling with always the new 
 vista of a new valley just opening before us. 
 
 But now eame tribulations. Mr. N. had evi- 
 dently wrenched his maehine in his struggle to free 
 it the night before. He began to have trouble, and 
 traveled more and more haltingly a little way be- 
 hind us. T. felt a personal responsibility for him 
 and we were continually stopping to wait for him. 
 Finally we halted at the head of a pass before 
 plunging down what turned out to be a long de- 
 scent. We had just elimbed up from a wide valley 
 and could see nothing of our fellow traveler on the 
 slope behind us. T. left the car and went back; 
 and while I waited, looking off at the mountains, 
 two women reaehed my hilltop, the older one driv- 
 ing the Ford car in which they were traveling. 
 They looked like women of the plains, perfectly 
 
134 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 able to take care of themselves and to meet emer- 
 gencies. They had food supplies with them, and 
 two dogs as fellow passengers. The one, a fox 
 terrier, was tied in a box in the tonneau and looked 
 very unhappy. The other, a spaniel, was running 
 back and forth on the rear seat and whining with 
 anxiety to get out. His mistress told me that he 
 was one of the greatest hunters in Nevada, and 
 that he was anxious to go off in the sage brush on 
 a grand chase. Just here the two men came up 
 the hill with Mr. N.’s Ford car, weary and exhausted 
 from going over its machinery and struggling to 
 get it moving. The women warned us that in the 
 valley at the foot of the hill was a very bad mud hole 
 which we must inevitably negotiate. They said that 
 a stream from the mountains had in a recent 
 freshet overflowed the plain and reduced both 
 the road and the adjoining country to the state of 
 a swamp. They assured us that we simply must go 
 through the mud hole and that we were bound to 
 get stuck in it. They cheered us, however, by tell- 
 ing us that a nearby settler had a sturdy draught 
 horse and that he would in all probability pull us 
 out for the sum of $2.00 a motor car. We 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 135 
 
 thanked them for their warning and drove down 
 the long hill into the next valley. 
 
 I had been interested while waiting for Mr. N.’s 
 machine to come up, to see the beautiful cactus blos- 
 soms growing close to the ground on both sides of 
 the road. They were of a rich yellow and a rich 
 magenta color, single petaled and really beautiful. 
 I saw them growing all along through the desert. 
 In some places they made broad patches of color. 
 
 Coming on to another wide valley stretching away 
 for eighty miles and more, we saw the mud hole 
 before us and carefully examined the sides of the 
 road to see if we could not make a detour. The 
 spongy, muddy soil assured us that it was hopeless, 
 and that what the women had told us was only too 
 true. In the meantime the settler, working with 
 his wife and baby near at hand in his newly cleared 
 field, kept an eye on us. But he did not come to 
 our rescue until we called him. The Ford, being 
 the machine of lighter weight, started first through 
 the mud hole. Its wheels sank immediately and no 
 turning on of power could push it forward. We 
 then shouted to the settler. He came across the 
 field with his big horse, and as he drew near we 
 
136 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 saw that he was a tall, good looking man with an 
 open and kindly face. I was secretly glad that the 
 poor fellow who had so recently cast his lot in this 
 lonely and immense valley had a chance to earn 
 some ready money. After a little pleasant dicker- 
 ing he agreed to pull the machines out for $1.00 
 apiece. The splendid big horse was harnessed to 
 the machine and at the word he threw his weight 
 against his traces and philosophically pulled away, 
 while Mr. N. at the same instant turned on his 
 power. The machine easily came out of the mud 
 and was soon on dry ground. T. drove our ma- 
 chine forward, was instantly imbedded in the mud 
 and was pulled out in the same way. It was inter- 
 esting to see how the big horse threw his weight 
 into the pulling at just the proper moment and re- 
 laxed as he felt the machine settle on the firm 
 ground. His master told us that the animal had 
 come with their little caravan from Colorado, seven 
 hundred and twenty miles, without turning a hair, 
 while the other horse sickened and died. 
 
 This man had only his few supplies and the little 
 tent in which they were living, together with a bit 
 of the rich land already cleared and planted to a 
 crop. He said that he had never seen richer land 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 137 
 
 than this from which the sage brush had been pulled 
 up and burned off. A thin muddy stream trickled 
 across the road from the hills and was used both 
 for irrigation and for drinking purposes. “But 
 when you come back next year, I shall have a well 
 down,” said the brave homesteader. “And, by 
 George, if the County Commissioners won’t put in 
 a bridge across this mud hole. I’ll put one across 
 myself ! Just come back and see a year from now!” 
 We waved him goodbye and went on our way across 
 the lone valley and up another divide. The valley 
 was Monitor Valley, he told us. I can see him 
 standing there in the lovely light of the late after- 
 noon sun, he and his wife and their baby boy waving 
 us farewell. I should like to pass that way again 
 and to see whether he has replaced his tent by a 
 little house and whether his virgin fields are green 
 with a crop. 
 
 Some day, I suppose, those wide, far-stretching 
 acres will be dotted with houses and barns and 
 stacks of alfalfa. It is difficult to convey the im- 
 pression that these vast valleys with the hills in the 
 distance, and with the rich coloring of the sunrise * 
 and the sunset, make upon one. They are lonely 
 and yet they are not lonely. They are full of life. 
 
138 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 We saw hundreds of prairie dogs. Day after day 
 they scuttled across our pathway, often narrowly 
 escaping. Sometimes they sat on their hind legs by 
 their burrows, waiting as long as they dared until 
 the noise of the machine frightened them into their 
 holes. Sometimes a whole village of them would 
 watch us until we drew near, and then frantically 
 disappear. Sometimes we saw a coyote, usually in 
 the early morning or the late afternoon. We once 
 saw one whose curiosity was so great that he halted 
 perhaps fifty yards away, and looked at us from 
 this safe distance as we passed. Once we saw a 
 rabbit breathing his last near the roadside, his soft 
 eyes filled with a look of far away consciousness 
 and pain. And once we saw a beautiful antelope 
 leaping and bounding over the sage brush so lightly 
 that he looked in the distance like a phantom ani- 
 mal made of thistle down. 
 
 I can completely understand how the desert casts 
 its spell over cattlemen and sheepmen so that they 
 love it and its freedom and are continually drawn 
 back to it. The mystery and glory of the desert 
 plains have their devotees just as really as the mys- 
 tery and glory of the great city have their worship- 
 pers who never wish to be far from its lights. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 139 
 
 The many stops of the day had made us very late 
 and it was in darkness that we came through the 
 canyon which makes a long gateway to the town of 
 Eureka. There was something fearsome about 
 those dark rocks, whose mysteries we had never 
 seen by daylight, rising on each side of us, and about 
 the deep chasm that lay in shadow down at the left 
 of the road. We were glad indeed when the lights 
 of our lamps flashed on the stakes with their fa- 
 miliar red, white, and blue markings, the friendly 
 signs of our beloved Lincoln Highway. It was 
 nearly nine o’clock when we came into Eureka, and 
 drew up at the dim lights of Brown’s Hotel. 
 Brown’s Hotel seemed to be mostly a bar room and 
 lounging place; at least that was the impression 
 made upon me by the glimpse I caught of the 
 lighted room downstairs as I stood on the wooden 
 porch. But we were shown upstairs to a very com- 
 fortable, old fashioned, high ceilinged room with 
 heavy walnut furniture of the style of forty years 
 ago. An aged ingrain carpet was on the floor, and 
 a wreath of wax flowers such as our grandmothers 
 rejoiced in, hung, set in a deep frame, on the wall. 
 I thought to myself that these were relics of de- 
 parted glories and of a day when there was money 
 
140 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 to furnish the old hostel in the taste then in vogue. 
 A dim oil lamp assisted our toilet and we went 
 downstairs and out into the town to a restaurant 
 kept by an Italian and his wife. It was the only 
 place where we could get food at that time of night. 
 Eureka is a most forlorn little town, perched high 
 and dry, just as if the waves of traffic and of com- 
 mercial life had ebbed away and left it far up on 
 the beach forever. They told us that it was once a 
 big and prosperous town. But like Mariposa in 
 California, the mining interests have been trans- 
 ferred to other localities and the town is left lonely. 
 As we walked along its silent and dimly lighted 
 main street, we saw the quaint wooden porches in 
 front of the shops and houses, some high, some low, 
 making an uneven sidewalk. Practically all of the 
 shops were closed, only the saloons being open. 
 
 The Italian had named his restaurant The Ve- 
 nezia in honor of his native city. It was a bright, 
 comfortable little room, the kitchen at the back of 
 it lightly screened from the dining room. It ad- 
 joined his hotel, quite a large building, where he 
 proudly told us he had twenty-two beds. His wife, 
 a stout, bright-eyed woman, cheerfully took our or- 
 der. “I am poor,” she said smilingly, “so I cook 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 141 
 
 when other people ask me. If I rich I cook when 
 I feel like it.” A savory smell arose from her fry- 
 ing pan, and we were soon eating excellent and gen- 
 erous slices of ham, drinking very respectable tea, 
 and enjoying some good bread and butter. It was 
 a most refreshing supper after a long and somewhat 
 trying day. We expressed our appreciation to our 
 Italian friends and paid the very modest reckoning. 
 
142 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The next morning we had breakfast at Brownes 
 Hotel. The landlord called my attention to a robin 
 who was building her nest in a tree in front of the 
 hotel; the only tree that I recall seeing on the bare, 
 bald, yellow village street. 
 
 In our long ride of the day before, we had come 
 through Edwards Creek Valley, the Smith Creek 
 Valley, the Reese River Valley, the Antelope Val- 
 ley, the Monitor Valley, and other great valleys of 
 whose names I was not sure. We had seen the Clan 
 Alpine Mountains from Alpine ranch, the Toyabee 
 National Range, and other ranges whose names 
 were too many and too local for me to he sure of 
 them. And I had read of 275,000 acres that had 
 been placed on the market in Elko County alone. 
 I had read in the Elko paper that “For years, there 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 143 
 
 was a popular prejudice in the East that Nevada 
 was one grand glorious desert, the land worthless, 
 and that nothing could be grown out here. But in 
 later years the public back East has been shown 
 that such is not the case, but on the contrary, we 
 have the richest land in Elko County to be found 
 anywhere in the United States, and that the crops 
 here are the best and almost anything can be grown 
 in Elko County.” 
 
 Having seen the rich land of our brave home- 
 steader in Monitor Valley, I was ready to believe 
 this outburst of local pride. 
 
 It was the 23rd of June when the landlord of 
 Brown’s Hotel waved his farewell to us and we 
 drove on. All day we were among the hills, not 
 seeing them on far distant horizons, but continually 
 climbing and descending among them. Twenty- 
 three miles from Eureka we saw a wooded moun- 
 tain, quite different from the bald grey hills we 
 had seen the day before. Short, scrubby green 
 trees, somewhat like our New Jersey junipers, 
 grew on the mountain sides and gave this appear- 
 ance of foilage and greenness. We saw many of 
 them in our day’s ride. When we reached Six Mile 
 House, having passed Fourteen Mile House, we 
 
144. ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 asked the ranchman’s wife to give us some lunch- 
 eon. She said that she could not accommodate us, 
 having but few supplies on hand. She advised us 
 to go on to Hamilton and said that she would tele- 
 phone to the Hamilton House that we were com- 
 ing. In accordance with her directions we took a 
 turn to the right shortly after leaving Six Mile 
 House and climbed up through a narrow, rocky 
 canyon road. Finally, within a mile or so of Ham- 
 ilton, when we had one more hill to climb, we came 
 upon a morass made by the bursting of a water 
 pipe. We could not go around it and we dared not 
 attempt to go through it, no friendly settler with a 
 powerful horse being in sight. So we turned care- 
 fully about, went down the rocky road to the fork 
 where we had turned off, and took the other branch 
 of the fork. Then we climbed up another moun- 
 tain road until we reached the summit of the pass, 
 8115 feet. From here we had a grand view of the 
 mountains and we also met the high ridge road 
 from Hamilton. We pressed on down the hill past 
 a deserted ranch house to Moorman’s Ranch, a hos- 
 pitable looking house by the roadside. At Moor- 
 man’s Ranch we found an unforgettable hospital- 
 ity. Our host and hostess were Missourians, and 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 145 
 
 to our question as to whether they could give us 
 any luncheon at 2 o’clock, they gave us a most sat- 
 isfactory answer. Mrs. Moorman soon had a laden 
 table ready for us, and we sat down to fried bacon 
 and eggs, potatoes, lettuce, radishes, preserved cher- 
 ries, stewed prunes, milk, tea, and pie. How re- 
 freshing it all was ! And how pleasant was the soft 
 Southern accent of our hostess which she had not 
 lost in the years on the plains. 
 
 Moorman’s Ranch is a large ranch with grazing 
 rights in the hills near by. The adjoining ranch 
 with its recently deserted ranch house is now a part 
 of Moorman’s Ranch, and there is a large acreage 
 for the cattle. We learned that the wretched coy- 
 otes come down from the hills and steal the young 
 calves at every opportunity. Only a few days be- 
 fore, a cow had gone to drink leaving her new born 
 calf for a few minutes. When she came back, the 
 little animal had been struck down by a waiting 
 coyote. We learned too that the mountain lions 
 come down from the hills and sometimes attack 
 the young colts and kill them. 
 
 It was with sincere regret that we bade goodbye 
 to Captain and Mrs. Moorman. May their ranch 
 flourish from year to year! 
 
146 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 Shortly after leaving the ranch and in crossing 
 another wide valley, we saw a herd of several hun- 
 dred wild horses feeding on the great plain — a beau- 
 tiful sight. They were grazing in a rich part of the 
 plain where the grass looked thick and lush. 
 
 I must own to having an impression that the 
 trail across Nevada could be marked by whiskey 
 bottles if by no other signs. All along our road 
 across the great State we saw the bottles where they 
 had been thrown in the sand and dust by passers-by. 
 
 Many times I thought of the “Forty-niners,” as 
 we saw the sign, “Overland Trail.” In coming 
 along the Lincoln Highway, we are simply travers- 
 ing the old overland road along which the prairie 
 schooners of the pioneers passed. How much heart- 
 ache, heart-break, and hope deferred this old trail 
 has seen! I think of it as we bowl along so com- 
 fortably over the somewhat rough but yet very pass- 
 able road. I can appreciate now the touching 
 story in a San Francisco paper of an old lady who 
 came to the rear platform of a fine overland train 
 after passing a certain village station, and threw 
 out some flowers upon the plain. Near here, she 
 told her friends, her little baby had been buried in 
 the desert forty years before, as she and her hus- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 147 
 
 band toiled with their little caravan along the trail. 
 The years had passed and they were prosperous and 
 old in California. And now as she went East on 
 the swift and beautiful train she threw out her 
 tribute to the little grave somewhere in the great 
 desert. 
 
 As we drew near Ely, the famous copper city, we 
 passed the huge mountain of earth which forms the 
 wealth of the Ely mines. The Lincoln Highway 
 signs take one to the right on a short detour in order 
 that one may see this mountain of ore, which is be- 
 ing cut away by immense steam shovels, tier above 
 tier. Returning to the main road, we drove on 
 through a canyon and so came into the bright little 
 town of Ely which has many evidences of prosper- 
 ity. We found the Northern Hotel, European in 
 plan, most comfortable. Next door was an excel- 
 lent cafe where we had a supper of which a New 
 York restaurant need not have been ashamed. 
 Leaving Ely on the morning of June 24th, we drove 
 through Step toe Valley for some forty miles. 
 Where we turned off from the valley it still 
 stretched on for another forty miles. It looked as 
 if it might go on to the world’s end. Just out of 
 Ely we passed through McGill and visited the im- 
 
148 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 mense smelting works. There we saw the “concen- 
 trators,” interesting machines to shake down the 
 heavy grains of copper from the lighter grains of 
 sand and earth. These big, slanting boards keep 
 up a continual shake, shake, shake while a thin 
 stream of water pours over them. They are a little 
 less slanting than the board of a woman’s washtub 
 would be, and yet they lie somewhat hke a wash- 
 board. The shaking of the board and the action 
 of the water combine to roll down the heavy grains 
 of copper. It seems a simple process, and yet the 
 regulation of the board’s motion and the angle 
 of its slant are calculated to a nicety. There were 
 hundreds of these “concentrators” at work sepa- 
 rating the copper from its native earth. We saw 
 also the great smelting furnaces and realized how 
 it must have been possible for the men who pre- 
 pared the furnace for the burning of Shadrach, Me- 
 shach, and Abednego to be burned to death them- 
 selves. What a fearful heat rolled out as one 
 of the furnace doors was opened and a molten 
 stream of white-hot slag was raked into the gutter 
 below I And how the copper glowed as we saw it in 
 its enormous melting caldron! For the first time 
 I saw a traveling crane at work. A characteristic 
 
Ely, Nevada. 2. Homesteader’s Ranch near Lahontan Dam. 3. Copper Mine at Ely. 4. Ely, Nev. 
 
Of 
 
 Of 
 
 ILUH0\S 
 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 149 
 
 sign was near it in both English and Greek. It 
 read, “Keep away from crane. Keep clear and 
 stand from under.” 
 
 As we left Steptoe Valley and came down a long 
 slope into Spring Valley, we crossed Shellbourne 
 Pass under the shadow of the Shellbourne range. 
 We passed some young people from Detroit, the 
 gentleman driving his car. We also passed some 
 men with their laden burros taking supplies to the 
 sheepmen in the mountain ranges. These sheepmen 
 live their lives apart from the world for months at a 
 time, seeing only the man who brings their supplies 
 at intervals. 
 
 We had luncheon at Anderson’s ranch, where they 
 treated us very hospitably. I judged that this was 
 a Mormon’s household, as Mormon marriage cer- 
 tificates hung upon the wall and as the Deseret 
 Weekly was evidently its newspaper connection 
 with the outside world. Here our friend Mr. N. 
 took on board a young man from the ranch who 
 wished to get back to Salt Lake City. This young 
 fellow was delighted to have such a ride and Mr. N, 
 was glad to have a traveling companion. Later in 
 the day we passed Tippett’s ranch and learned that 
 its owner travels thirty-six miles for his mail and 
 
150 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 supplies. Toward evening we crossed the Utah 
 border and immediately came upon bad roads. We 
 had a rough stretch until we reached our station for 
 the night, Ibapah. Ibapah consists of a very 
 pleasant ranch house and of a general supply gro- 
 cery, both house and grocery owned by Mr. Sheri- 
 dan. We had a comfortable night at the ranch 
 house and purchased some beautiful baskets made 
 by the Indians and brought by them to Mr. Sheri- 
 dan for sale. The air was so fine and the evening 
 so delightful that we reluctantly retired. Never 
 can I forget the crystal silences of those still nights 
 on the high plains of the West. The next day, June 
 25th, we had a drive of one hundred and twenty 
 miles across rough and lonely country. From Iba- 
 pah we went on through the valley in which the 
 ranch lay, coming to an extremely rough canyon 
 road, practically nothing but the bed of a stream. 
 Then came Kearney’s Ranch, where they warned 
 us of some mud holes in the road ahead. We drove 
 around a rocky point, picking our way carefully, 
 some hot springs and a sulphur lake smoking off in 
 the distance on our left. The mountains rose to the 
 right above our route, bare and bald. We came to 
 Fish Springs Ranch in the midst of this lonely 
 
American Baptist Home Mission Touring Wagon. 2. Fish Springs Ranch, Utah. 
 
LiBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 UNSVERSii Y OF ILLINOl 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 151 
 
 country and stopped for luncheon. Our host was 
 a tall and powerfully built elderly ranchman in a 
 blue jumper. A younger man lived with him and 
 the two did their cooking and eating in a little log 
 and stone house, near the main ranch house. He 
 explained to us that he kept the little house because 
 it was once a station on the Wells Fargo stage 
 route. “Horace Greeley ate at this table when he 
 came on his historic Western trip, and so I keep 
 the place standing,” he said. His young helper 
 cooked our meal in the back room and our host 
 served it in the front one. We had fried eggs, po- 
 tatoes, pickles, cheese, bread, butter, and tea, and an 
 appetizing cup cake cut in square pieces. I no- 
 ticed a White House Cook Book lying on a little 
 table near by. Our host was very hospitable. 
 “Have some of them sweet pickles, folks.” “Do we 
 raise cattle here? You bet we do. I have had this 
 ranch over thirty years.” As we left him he warned 
 us that we were now entering the “Great American 
 Desert” and that we would have sixty miles of dry 
 plain with very little undergrowth and with no wa- 
 ter. He told us that if we got into trouble we 
 should start a fire and “make a smoke.” “I’ll see 
 you with my glasses” he said, “and drive to your 
 
152 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 rescue with gasoline and water.” I had seen near 
 the ranch house a clear, bubbling spring which 
 doubtless gave its name to the ranch. 
 
 We assured him that we were well stocked with 
 gasoline and that we had on our running board a 
 standard oil can filled with water. When we were 
 twenty miles away I could still see the ranch house, 
 a tiny speck upon the horizon. At last we came to 
 a well by the roadside which was marked “County 
 well.” The road, though somewhat bumpy, was in 
 many places smooth and excellent, a sort of clay 
 highway. Midway across the desert we met another 
 car and exchanged greetings. 
 
 Late in the afternoon as we were climbing up a 
 slight pass, a dust storm overtook us. The sky was 
 overcast, the mountains' and plain were blotted out, 
 and we could only drive along slowly and endure 
 the choking clouds of dust until the storm had swept 
 by. It was blessed to come again into clear sun- 
 shine and to see the outlines of the mountains ap- 
 pearing once more. Once over the pass, we came 
 into a great ranch valley and saw that we had left 
 the bare plains behind us. We reached the Kanaka 
 Ranch in time for supper and were assured that we 
 could have lodging for the night. The Kanaka 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 153 
 
 Ranch of eight thousand acres is the property of 
 the Mormon church. It is under the charge of a 
 young manager who looks after the Hawaiians 
 (Kanaka meaning a South Sea Islander) who have 
 been converted to the Mormon faith, and who have 
 been brought to the ranch to work upon its acres 
 and to make their homes there under the friendly 
 shadow of the church’s authority. The manager 
 was a dignified young man with a pleasant wife and 
 four dear little children. They gave us a most ap- 
 petizing supper and breakfast. “The difference 
 between your belief and ours,” said our host to T., 
 “is that you believe in a completed revelation. We 
 believe in a continuous revelation.” 
 
 I heard him talking very fluently in the Hawaiian 
 tongue to some of his disciples who had come in for 
 farm directions. 
 
 The next morning was wonderfully fresh and 
 clear, a rain having fallen during the night. We 
 had just a taste of what a rainy trip would be 
 across country, as we slipped about on the greasy 
 mud of the highway. One reason why our long 
 journey was so ideal was because of the dry season. 
 Day after day we came on over perfectly dry 
 roads and under perfectly clear skies. Another ad- 
 
154 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 vantage of our journey was that we were traveling 
 East. Every afternoon the sun was behind us, to 
 our great comfort; and the beautiful light fell on 
 the plains and mountains ahead of us. No wonder 
 that we loved to travel late in the afternoon and 
 that we had to make a stern rule for ourselves to 
 follow, to the effect that no matter how tempted 
 we were, we would not travel after sunset. 
 
 By dint of creeping slowly along we passed the 
 slippery stretches of road and enjoyed the fine open 
 country with the mountains to the right and the 
 farms to the left. After passing Grantsville we 
 came by some large concentrators and smelters 
 in the shadow of the mountain. Turning left we 
 came around the shoulder of the mountain, and 
 there to our left was Great Salt Lake, sparkling and 
 blue-green in the morning light, a mountainous isl- 
 and in the middle of it. We could see the Casino at 
 the end of the long pier at Saltair, a favorite resort 
 for Salt Lake City people. We passed the miners’ 
 homes at Magna and Garfield, someone having 
 written facetiously the sign “Mosquito Park” over 
 the entrance to a swampy district with its little set- 
 tlement of cottages. Now we came into a beautiful 
 upland country with fine farms and every appear- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 155 
 
 ance of prosperity. Cottonwoods and tall poplars 
 were seen everywhere on the landscape. They are 
 very characteristic of this part of the country. 
 They grow rapidly and the cottonwood sends its 
 roots long distances in search of water. As we ap- 
 proached Salt Lake City, it appeared to us to be a 
 green, wooded city extending down a long slope on 
 the mountain side. The new State House towered 
 high at the upper end of the slope against the back- 
 ground of lofty mountains, still snowy, which guard 
 the city. 
 
 I was charmed with Salt Lake City. It has a 
 beautiful situation, high and picturesque. Its 
 streets are very wide and this gives a certain state- 
 liness and air of hospitality to the town. It is laid 
 out on a generous scale. Many of the residence 
 streets have green stretches of flower-adorned park 
 running through the center. The open lawns of 
 the homelike homes, the broad streets, the resi- 
 dences of stone and brick, the masses of pink 
 rambler roses climbing over them, all make a charm- 
 ing impression upon one. Then there are delight- 
 ful excursions into the canyons of the great moun- 
 tains near the city. We took such an excursion by 
 electric car line, fourteen miles up into Immigra- 
 
166 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 tion Canyon. This is the old trail along which the 
 Mormons came in 1847. At the end of the line is a 
 delightful hotel, the Pinecrest Inn. Had there 
 been time we could have taken many more canyon 
 trips. 
 
 “The Utah” is a beautiful hotel with every mod- 
 em equipment. A great bee hive, the Mormon em- 
 blem, glows with light at night on top of the build- 
 ing. Of comse we saw the Mormon tabernacle and 
 walked about its splendid grounds. I was particu- 
 larly interested in the “sea gull monument,” de- 
 signed by Brigham Young’s grandson, and erected 
 in memory of the sea gulls that saved the crops the 
 first year of Mormon settlement by coming in flocks 
 and eating th? locusts that threatened to destroy 
 everything green. We enjoyed the fine view from 
 the State University buildings on the “bench” high 
 above the town. 
 
 In Salt Lake City I purchased some “canyon 
 shoes” of a famous manufacture, and later I found 
 them admirable for heavy walking trips. 
 
 We left Salt Lake City by driving through Par- 
 ley’s Canyon, a deep gash in the mountains parallel 
 to Immigration Canyon. It is a favorite local 
 drive to go out through Parley’s Canyon and re- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 157 
 
 turn to Salt Lake City through Immigration Can- 
 yon. The roadway is very narrow, as it shares the 
 canyon floor with a railroad track and with a rush- 
 ing stream, so one must drive carefully and keep a 
 sharp lookout for trains. We met an itinerant Bap- 
 tist missionary driving in his big caravan wagon 
 into the country for a preaching trip. After leav- 
 ing Parley’s Canyon we came into open rolling 
 country, and passed the substantial stone buildings 
 of Stevens Ranch and Kimball Ranch. Then came 
 Silver Creek Canyon, more open than Parley’s 
 Canyon and with a fair road. We had luncheon at 
 the Coalville Hotel. I was attracted to the little 
 town of Coalville because there were so many yards 
 where old fashioned yellow rosebushes were laden 
 with bloom. We drove on through Echo Canyon, 
 whose red sandstone rocks, chiseled in many forms 
 by wind and weather, have very fine coloring. 
 At Castle Rock the whole formation is like that 
 of a massive fortification. Six miles before we 
 reached the town of Evanston, we crossed the State 
 line and were in Wyoming. It is a pity that these 
 State boundaries are indicated in many places by 
 such shabby, indifferent wooden signs, looking as 
 if they had been put up over night. Doubtless as 
 
158 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 the Lincoln Highway is improved there will be dig- 
 nified boundary stones erected to mark the State 
 lines. 
 
 Evanston is a pleasant little town 6300 feet high. 
 Near Evanston is the Chapman Ranch, where many 
 thousands of sheep are handled. We stopped in 
 Evanston only a few minutes and then drove on 
 through delightful desert country, open and roll- 
 ing, grey-green and blue in its coloring. The 
 Wyoming desert has a sharper and more vivid 
 coloring than that of Nevada. The tableland is 
 more rolling and the mountains are farther away. 
 It is a wonderful sheep country, but the flocks are 
 at present in the mountain ranges. Later, as the 
 autumn comes on and cold falls upon their moun- 
 tain pastures, the herders will bring them down to 
 these plains over which we are passing. 
 
 Mr. Dudley of Alpine Ranch told us that should 
 we visit the ranch in autumn we would find the 
 whole valley covered with sheep. We heard much 
 “sheep talk” in Nevada and Wyoming. We 
 learned about the “shad scale” which the sheep eat, 
 and about certain kinds of sage brush that are very 
 nutritious. Mr. Dudley had pointed out to us a 
 low-growing white plant, somewhat like the “dusty 
 
1. Prairie Schooners, Westward Bound. 2. Lincoln Highway Sign in 
 the Desert. 3. Sheep in the Wyoming Desert. 
 

 LiBPiAHY 
 Of I HE 
 
 UlfOVERblU OF ILLINOIS 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 159 
 
 miller” of our childhood, that is extremely nutri- 
 tious for cattle. 
 
 Here and there on the desert we see fine bunches 
 of beef cattle, feeding in little oases; green, damp 
 stretches of country in the midst of an ocean of sage 
 brush. 
 
 Now and then we pass a cattleman or a sheep- 
 man riding with that easy give of the body which 
 is so graceful and so characteristic of Western 
 horsemen. I know nothing like it, save the easy 
 posture of those immortal youths who ride forever 
 in the procession of the Elgin marbles in the Brit- 
 ish Museum. They have the same graceful easing 
 of the body to the motion of the horse, and give 
 the same impression of the harmony of horse and 
 rider. Often we pass white, closely plastered log 
 houses, just such as we saw in Nevada. We 
 see white canopied wagons in the barnyards of al- 
 most every ranch house, just as in eastern Nevada. 
 These people think nothing of traveling long dis- 
 tances in their prairie schooners with their supplies 
 for roadside camping at night. They travel in 
 their wagons to pay visits, to transact business and 
 to buy supplies, and make long journeys in the 
 summer months. 
 
160 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 The smell of the sage brush, pungent and aro- 
 matic, is in my nostrils from day to day. I love it 
 in its cleanness and spiciness, and shall be sorry 
 when we have left the desert behind us. We have 
 to be watchful for chuck holes made by the inde- 
 fatigable gophers or prairie dogs. They often biu*- 
 row in the ruts of the road. Our local guide leaf- 
 lets, furnished us by garages along the route, are 
 full of warnings about “chucks.” Once we come 
 upon a badger, beautifully marked, who has thrown 
 up a large mound of dirt in burrowing his tunnel 
 just in the middle of the road. He sees us coming 
 and scuttles into his hole. We stop the car as we 
 get near the hole and sit motionless. We wait pa- 
 tiently until finally his beautifully marked brown 
 and white head is thrust cautiously out of his shel- 
 ter. He is very curious to see what this huge black 
 thing is, standing silent near his dwelling. Twice 
 his head appears and his bright eyes peer out cu- 
 riously. Then the click of the camera frightens 
 him and he disappears to be seen no more. 
 
 Occasionally we pass motionless bodies of go- 
 phers and rabbits that have been struck by the fly- 
 ing wheel of some passing motor as they madly 
 scrambled for safety. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 161 
 
 Late in the day we passed Fort Bridget with its 
 few old stone houses, probably barracks in the old 
 days. Shortly before coming into Fort Bridget 
 we came upon two draught horses feeding peace- 
 fully by the roadside. As they saw us, they imme- 
 diately came into the road and began to trot just 
 ahead of our machine. First we drove gently, hop- 
 ing that after their first fright they would turn 
 aside into the great plain which stretched for miles, 
 unbroken by fences, on each side of the road. But 
 no, they trotted steadily on. Then we drove faster, 
 hoping to wear them down and by the rush of our 
 approach to force them off the road. Once they 
 were at the side of the road we could quickly pass 
 them and their fright would be over. To our dis- 
 appointment they broke into a wild gallop and 
 showed no sign of leaving the road. They were 
 heavy horses, and we were sorry to have them thun- 
 dering so distressfully ahead of us. Then we 
 dropped into a slow walk and so did they. But as 
 soon as we traveled faster, they broke into a gallop. 
 For ten miles they kept this up. We were quite in 
 despair of ever dropping them, when suddenly we 
 came to a fork in the road. To our joy they ran 
 along the left fork. Our route was along the right 
 
162 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 fork and we went on to Fort Bridger glad to be 
 rid of the poor frightened beasts. 
 
 A breeze sprang up toward sunset and we came 
 in the twilight to the little town of Lyman where 
 the only hostel was The Marshall, half home and 
 half hotel, kept by Mrs. Marshall. As we came 
 into the town the high, snowy Wahsatch range was 
 on our right. We had first seen its distant peaks 
 about twenty-four miles out of Evanston. 
 
 Mrs. Marshall gave us an abundant supper and 
 we slept dreamlessly in a little upper room with one 
 window. Upon what a glory of sunrise did that 
 little upper window look out that morning of the 
 first of July! The vast landscape was bathed in 
 lavender light, the Wahsatch range and the moun- 
 tains of oiu* Eastern pathway catching the first 
 glory of the coming sun, while the plains were in 
 deeper lavender. 
 
 The village street looked like a pathway of lav- 
 ender. The little wooden, painted houses, the barns, 
 some red, some grey and unpainted, all glowed 
 with transforming light and color. Rohins and 
 meadow larks were singing. Far, far to the north- 
 east was a purple horizon line. The air was like 
 wine. I stayed at the window until I was half 
 
Wyoming Cattle. 2. The Marshall Hotel, Lyman, Wyoming. 3. Before Shearing, Medicine Bow, 
 Wyoming. 4. After Shearing, Medicine Bow, Wyoming. 
 
library 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 163 
 
 frozen in the cool morning air, entranced by it all. 
 
 It was at Lyman that we heard talk of the ever 
 smouldering feud between cattlemen and sheep- 
 men. Not far from Lyman is the “dead line” over 
 which sheepmen are not allowed to take their sheep. 
 On the other side of this stern boundary are the 
 cattlemen, and they have issued a warning to the 
 sheepmen which they have more than once carried 
 out. A few years ago a sheepman either purposely 
 or carelessly got over the dead line with his sheep. 
 He was mysteriously shot and two hundred of his 
 sheep were killed in one night. No one knows who 
 the murderer was. Back in the shadows looms the 
 threat of the cattlemen, grim and real. 
 
 We had been told in Wyoming of the buying of a 
 big ranch by adjacent ranch people in order that 
 no sheepman might come in to share the water and 
 the ranges with the cattleman. 
 
 Cattle will not feed, they tell us, where sheep 
 have fed, as the sheep tear up the earth and also 
 graze very closely. It is impossible for sheep and 
 cattle to graze comfortably on the same ranges. 
 
 We left Lyman in high spirits after a good 
 breakfast, driving along with the Wahsatch moun- 
 tains on our right and with detached mountains 
 
164 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 continually appearing on the horizon as we moved 
 eastward. We were now in the region of what 
 they call in the West “buttes,” a “butte” being, so 
 far as I know, a detached, isolated mass of moun- 
 tain. The Wyoming buttes are wonderfully carved 
 by wind and sand and weather and many of them 
 present a mysterious and imposing appearance. 
 Often they are table lands, rising square and mass- 
 ive against the horizon like immense fortresses. On 
 the way to Granger these massive table lands with 
 their square outlines loom up against the grander 
 background of the snowy Wahsatch range. 
 
 The first thirty miles out of Evanston we had an 
 excellent road. There was a charming desert flower 
 growing in the dusty road and alongside, white and 
 somewhat like a single petaled water-lily. Its buds 
 were pink, and it sprang from a whorl of leaves 
 like those of a dandelion. Its fragrance was most 
 delicate. There was also the lovely blue larkspur, 
 and there were clusters of a brick-red flower which 
 grew rather tall. Then there were clumps of some- 
 thing very like a dark scarlet clover. The fine 
 mountain scenery, the fantastically carved buttes, 
 sometimes like miniature canyons, the glorious air, 
 all put us in delightful humour with ourselves and 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 165 
 
 the world. At the little town of Granger on the 
 railroad line we met two young pedestrians who 
 were walking on a wager from Kearney, Nebraska, 
 to Seattle. They were to have $500. apiece if they 
 reached Seattle by the first of August. Their yel- 
 low outing shirts bore the inscription, “Walking 
 from Kearney, Nebraska, to Seattle.” They told 
 us they were able to make forty miles a day. When 
 they reached Salt Lake City they were to have sub- 
 stantial new walking boots from the merchants at 
 Kearney, the bargain being that at that point they 
 were to return their worn boots to be exhibited in 
 the shop windows of Kearney. They had been 
 halted at Granger because of lack of money, having 
 miscalculated their needs. They had just had a 
 telegram from home, sending them money and as- 
 suring them of more help if they needed it. They 
 looked strong and fit and were perfectly confident 
 that they would win the wager. We also met two 
 young motor-cyclists from Akron, Ohio, en route 
 for the coast. 
 
 There were several eating places at Granger, but 
 it was too early for luncheon, so we pressed on to 
 Green River, a Union Pacific Railway town. From 
 Granger to Green River the road was poorer and 
 
166 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 more bumpy. Fine masses of rock and carved table- 
 land rose on the horizon as we drove along. As 
 we approached Green River a splendid red, yellow, 
 and clay-colored mountain loomed on the horizon, 
 which as we neared the town resolved itself into 
 long lines of buttes back of the town. Teakettle 
 Rock, an immense, isolated butte, rose to the left, 
 and Castle Rock was just back of the town. The 
 butte scenery both approaching and leaving Green 
 River was very fine. The coloring was extremely 
 rich; soft reds, yellows, browns, and clay colors. 
 There were long lines of round buttresses and 
 great concavities of rock, more like the famous 
 Causses of southern France than anything I have 
 ever seen. 
 
 We had luncheon at Green River in the spacious 
 dining room of the Union Pacific Station, and felt 
 ourselves quite in touch with the East to be eating 
 in the same dining room with passengers of the 
 long overland train. 
 
 Our drive from Green River to Rock Springs 
 and from Rock Springs to Point of Rocks was 
 through lonely, desert country. It was nearly six 
 o’clock when we reached Point of Rocks, but the 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 167 
 
 sun was still high. Point of Rocks is simply a wa- 
 tering station for the trains and is marked only by 
 a station house, a grocery, and a few little cottages. 
 The young groceryman has fitted up the rooms 
 over his grocery for passing travelers. We estab- 
 lished ourselves in the front one, lighted by one little 
 window. It was very clean, though very simply 
 furnished. The fioor was bare and our furniture 
 consisted of a bed, a chair without a back, a tin 
 wash basin resting upon the chair, a lamp, a pail 
 of fresh water with a dipper, and a pail for waste 
 water. We had two fresh towels and felt ourselves 
 rich in comfort. Next door to the grocery was a 
 little cottage where a woman cooked for the few 
 railway operatives and for travelers. Our bacon 
 was somewhat salty and our coffee a little weak, 
 hut our supper and breakfast tasted good for we 
 had the sauce of hunger. We met there a young 
 railway operative who had come from the East to 
 this high, dry situation for the climate. He told 
 us that when he first came, the change to the still- 
 ness and space of the plain from the bu^ city and 
 from his life as a journalist was so great that he 
 could not keep still. He said that he walked fifteen 
 
168 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 miles a day, driven by some inner restlessness; but 
 that he gradually became used to the quiet and now 
 he loved it. 
 
 We had an evening talk in the grocery with a 
 young commercial man, who said laughingly that 
 these accommodations were somewhat different 
 from the gorgeous Hotel St. Francis of San Fran- 
 cisco. We assured him that we did not mind sim- 
 plicity and were deeply interested in seeing our 
 country under all sorts of conditions. He was 
 spending some hours of his time before the solitary 
 train came through in persuading the groceryman 
 to commit himself for a large hill of goods. The 
 commercial man said sadly that never before in his 
 ten years of travel had he seen business so uncer- 
 tain. 
 
 The water at Point of Rocks comes from a thou- 
 sand feet below the surface and has a slight sulphur 
 taste. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 169 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 We drove from Point of Rocks to Wamsutter, 
 where we had luncheon. The road from Point of 
 Rocks to Wamsutter is very rough and we were 
 tormented by the plague of these roads of the 
 plains; namely, gutters made across the roadway 
 by running water in time of freshets. One has to 
 be continually on guard for these runnels. Some- 
 times they are very deep. They give the machine 
 a frightful jar and if one comes upon them sud- 
 denly they are likely to break an axle. One must 
 possess one’s self in patience and drive at a pace 
 that will enable him to slow down quickly in com- 
 ing on them. Chuck holes and these gutters across 
 the road are the two chief difficulties of travel 
 across the plains. However, many a backcountry 
 
170 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 road of the Eastern States is just as uncomfortable 
 for motor travelers. 
 
 On our way to Wamsutter we passed a fellow 
 traveler, a gentleman from New York with his fam- 
 ily. His son drove their car, a Pope Hartford, and 
 they were seventeen days out from New York. 
 They had ten days more in which to reach San 
 Francisco if they were to help their friends win the 
 wagers which had been made on the time of their 
 trip across country. We assured them that they 
 would be able to reach San Francisco in ten days, 
 barring serious accidents, if only they would rise 
 early and drive late, making ten hours a day. 
 
 Just outside of Point of Rocks we had come 
 upon another and a humbler caravan. A man and 
 his wife were encamped in a canvas-covered moving- 
 wagon by the roadside, having found a patch of 
 grass that promised forage for the horses. We 
 stopped to talk with them and learned that they 
 lived near Pueblo, Colorado. Having planted their 
 crop they had come away on a prospecting tour into 
 northern Wyoming to look up better farming coun- 
 try. They were now returning, traveling by day 
 and camping by the roadside at night. They had 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 171 
 
 had what is called mountain fever, due they thought 
 to the bites of fnosquitoes. 
 
 They liked the Wyoming country they had seen, 
 but deplored the heavy drinking. They told us of 
 one man who had said that he did not mean to go 
 into town on the Fourth of July. Everybody got 
 drunk, said he, and he did not want to put himself 
 in the way of temptation. They spoke of a lovely 
 farming country in the midst of which was a little 
 town where saloons were open all night and all day 
 Sunday. They told us of one saloon keeper who 
 had been hauling barrels of whiskey for days in 
 preparation for his business of July 4th. He 
 openly boasted that he meant to take in $3,000. on 
 that day. 
 
 As we drive along, we constantly see the remains 
 of former camps by the roadside. , Old tin teaket- 
 tles, pieces of worn-out campstools, piles of tin cans ; 
 these are mute and inglorious monuments to the 
 bivouacs of other days. These immense Plateau 
 States are very dependent upon canned foods, and 
 all along tin cans mark the trail. We have many 
 evidences, too, that we are in a sheep and cattle 
 country. We pass the dried up carcasses of sheep 
 
172 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 and the bones of cattle and of horses as they lie 
 upon the desert near the road. Often the fleece of 
 the sheep, dried and shrunken by wind and weather, 
 sticks to the bones of the animal. It lies where it 
 fell, only one of a vast herd, sick and dying, per- 
 haps freezing in a blizzard. We asked one coun- 
 tryman what the sheep did in case of the fierce 
 storms that sometimes sweep over the winter plains. 
 “They just hump up and die,” he replied. We saw 
 many a shriveled carcass of some poor animal that 
 had succmnbed and fallen never to rise again. But 
 so high are these plains and so dry is the atmos- 
 phere, that nature quickly shrivels these carcasses 
 and they are not offensive as they would be in damp 
 climates. 
 
 Out on the desert we waited for a long freight 
 train to pass as it stood blocking the roadway. The 
 train conductor came along and he and T. ex- 
 changed greetings. “It’s good to see you,” said the 
 conductor; “you motor people are about the only 
 signs of life we fellows see out here on the desert.” 
 
 Coming into Wamsutter, and later coming to- 
 ward Rawlins, we flushed numbers of grey-brown 
 prairie chickens, almost as large as hens. They 
 would fly up from the sage brush as the noise of our 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 173 
 
 machine came near. There were some large flocks 
 of young birds. Between Rawlins and Laramie we 
 met late in the afternoon a large caravan of mov- 
 ers. They looked foreign and were evidently in 
 search of new farms and homes. They were drink- 
 ing, and watering their tired horses at a small sta- 
 tion on the railway. There were plenty of little 
 children in the caravan. One woman dandled a tiny 
 baby. A little farther on we came to a second and 
 smaller camp. These people were traveling from 
 Kansas to Washington. “There is good land there 
 still that can be taken up by homesteaders, fine 
 fruit lands,” said they. One man had seen the land 
 and was acting as guide for the others. Their wag- 
 ons were drawn by horses and bm-ros. The chil- 
 dren were sweet, cheerful little people, but the 
 whole party looked somewhat underfed. I would 
 have liked to give them all the luxury of a hot bath 
 in a big tub to be followed by a substantial supper. 
 They had their water with them, having hauled it 
 from the last point where water was to be had. 
 They deplored the fact that they had camped be- 
 fore knowing of the Union Pacific Station a little 
 farther on. Water is a precious thing in the desert. 
 We have passed two places where signs read that 
 
174 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 water could be had at the rate of five cents per 
 beast and twenty-five cents a barrel. At the wa- 
 tering stations on the Union Pacific Railroad, the 
 wells are the property of the Road. Before we 
 came into Medicine Bow, we passed through a little 
 mining town, high and bare on the summit of a 
 ridge. Just outside the town was a bare little cem- 
 etery, the brown graves decorated with paper 
 crosses and wreaths. An iron fence protected the 
 cemetery, and outside its boundaries was an untidy 
 litter of old wreaths and crosses which had been dis- 
 carded and had been blown by the wind in tight 
 heaps against the fence. 
 
 Ten miles beyond Medicine Bow the character of 
 the country suddenly changed. We came from the 
 grey and brown desert into fine rolling uplands dot- 
 ted with the new homes of homesteaders and green 
 with the precious water of irrigation. This was a 
 country newly settled and bearing every mark of 
 prosperity. At one point on the road we had great 
 difiiculty in getting through. A careless settler had 
 allowed the water of his irrigating ditch to run out 
 upon the road. It was with the greatest difiiculty 
 that we succeeded in getting through the mud. 
 Only the help of some fellow motorists from San 
 
Road in Wyoming: costing $50,000 per mile. 2. Characteristic Sign on Lincoln Highway. 
 
4 
 
 V./. 
 
 y ‘ 
 
 
 
 ILIBRARY 
 ,, OF THE 
 
 “"''Mijiiy OF iLLims 
 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 175 
 
 Francisco, who stopped to push the car while T. 
 turned on its power, enabled us to get through. A 
 few miles on we met the road commissioner who 
 proudly called our attention to the work that was 
 being done on the roads of his county. He told us 
 that he was on his way to arrest and fine the care- 
 less homesteader who had flooded the road. After 
 this fine stretch of fertile country we plunged once 
 more into a long stretch of desert. It was here 
 that I saw and welcomed the beautiful yucca that 
 I had seen growing in California. I saw too in 
 Wyoming quantities of cactus blooming in broad 
 patches of color, usually buff. 
 
 All day we mounted one ridge after another, 
 buttes to the left and to the right of us; driving 
 through a vast country with practically no ranch 
 houses and only isolated stations on the railroad for 
 watering purposes. 
 
 As we approached Wamsutter a wonderful great 
 tableland lay to the right of us, very high and with 
 an immense level top. It was like a fortress with 
 its buttresses and ramparts carved by nature. To 
 the left was a butte that was like a side view of the 
 Sphinx, an immense pyramid rising beside it. As 
 we came into Wamsutter, we drove along a ridge 
 
176 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 where the road had been laid to avoid a low marshy 
 tract of land. 
 
 Red Desert Station, just before reaching Wam- 
 sutter, is well named, the buttes having wonderful 
 color. 
 
 The day was hot, and it was a relief when the 
 afternoon sun began to decline. We felt that we 
 were dropping with it. But we were dropping 
 toward the East while it was falling toward the 
 West. In the afternoon, out on the great plain, 
 we had crossed the Continental Divide. It had not 
 been marked by any visible elevation of land above 
 the surrounding country. All was open country, 
 rolling and vast, and yet we had ascended the West- 
 ern slope and were now going down to the Missis- 
 sippi Valley. 
 
 We must soon begin to say farewell to the Pla- 
 teau States. The long upward climb is practi- 
 cally over. We look forward with the streams to 
 the Atlantic, leaving behind the water courses to 
 the Pacific. 
 
 Shortly after crossing the Divide we came to a 
 low head stone and a wooden cross at the left of 
 the road, marking the grave of a man of thirty-five 
 who died in 1900. It is a lone grave on this rolling 
 
BYi THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 177 
 
 ridge, yet it is destined to be passed by many trav- 
 elers in future years. 
 
 Some day the Divide will be marked upon the 
 Lincoln Highway by a monument, and the trav- 
 eler will have a satisfactory outward expression of 
 the thoughts that fill his heart. 
 
 Rawlins was our halting place for the night. It 
 is a pleasant town with wide streets and plenty of 
 sunshine. The post office is a beautiful httle build- 
 ing. We fraternized in Rawlins with fellow trav- 
 elers, a lady and her son who were going on from 
 Colorado Springs to Pasadena in a beautiful Stutz 
 roadster. 
 
 In Rawlins as in most Western towns, we stayed 
 at a hotel managed on the European plan and ate 
 our meals in a nearby restaurant. It is always a 
 surprise to me to see the number of people in the 
 restaurants and cafaterias of the West. Even in 
 small towns these places are crowded. 
 
 As we came into Rawlins we saw Elk Moun- 
 tain rising nobly on the horizon beyond us. When 
 we left Rawlins and traveled toward it, it grew 
 more imposing. 
 
 Instead of going on to Arlington, directly under 
 the shadow of Elk Mountain, we elected to turn off 
 
178 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 to Medicine Bow, made famous by Owen Wister’s 
 book, “The Virginian.” Elk Montain rises 12000 
 feet, and Medicine Bow is 6500 feet, above sea level. 
 It is only a railroad station, a tiny cluster of saloons, 
 a still smaller cluster of shops, a big shearing shed, 
 and a substantial stone hotel called The Virginian. 
 
 The landlady of The Virginian told us that their 
 hotel is always full of guests. 
 
 It is a busy place. Here the woolmen come to 
 trade and to export their wool, here the sheepmen 
 bring their sheep for the annual shearing. Nearly 
 sixty thousand sheep are shorn annually in the 
 shearing shed, a few minutes’ walk from the hotel. 
 Here the plainsmen come from time to time to 
 throw away in a few hours of drinking and gam- 
 bling the money earned in months spent in the open. 
 
 We had an excellent substantial lunch at the 
 hotel and then went over to see the shearing. 
 How hot and uncomfortable the poor sheep 
 looked in the waiting pen, with their heavy fleeces 
 weighing them down! They stood panting in the 
 sun, their broad backs making a thick rug, so tightly 
 were they wedged in together. And how half 
 ashamed they looked when they came out from the 
 shearing, thin and bare! 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 179 
 
 In this establishment the shearing is all done by 
 machinery. It takes a skillful man to run these 
 rapidly clicking shears over the animal’s body and 
 make no serious wound. The overseer told us that 
 in the case of an inexperienced man the sheep 
 would “fight him all over the pen.” The shearer 
 reaches out his right hand and grasps one of the 
 three or four sheep that have been pushed into a 
 little compartment from the main pens. The beasts 
 stand stupidly huddled together. The shearer 
 takes one by its left hind leg, and by a skillful 
 twist he throws it on its back and pulls it toward 
 him. Then he yanks it into a sitting position with 
 its back against his knees. Bending over it he takes 
 off first the thick coat of wool on its under- 
 body from throat to tail. It looks very easy, but 
 only skill can guide the shears through that thick 
 mass of wool, taking it off so cleanly and thor- 
 oughly, and yet leaving the pink skin unbroken. 
 
 Next come the fore legs, then the hind legs, then 
 the wool is trimmed from around the eyes and from 
 the top of the head. The workman moves very care- 
 fully here. Then the sheep is righted and the wool 
 is cut from its back and sides. It is interesting to 
 see how quietly the animal submits to it all. 
 
180 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 Quickly it is all over and an attendant pushes the 
 sheep through another aperture back into an outer 
 pen. The men work very rapidly and a good 
 shearer can easily handle one hundred sheep a day* 
 Some expert shearers can handle nearly two hun- 
 dred. These men are paid nine cents a head for 
 their work. 
 
 It was a picturesque sight in the long, airy shed. 
 Six men were handling their sheep, the clicking 
 shears moving rapidly over the big animals. A boy 
 gathered up the wool as fast as it dropped from 
 the sheep. Later it would be sorted into its dif- 
 ferent grades. An important, happy sheep dog ran 
 wildly about, eyes shining, tail wagging, his sharp 
 nose lifted to his master’s face. He seemed to be 
 saying, “This is fine, master, but isn’t there some- 
 thing that I could do at this moment?” The over- 
 seer stood at the end of the shed looking down the 
 row of busy workers. 
 
 From Medicine Bow we came to Laramie, reach- 
 ing there on the eve of the Fourth of July. Lara- 
 mie boasts a good hotel which was crowded with 
 people. Ranchmen had brought their families for 
 the festivities of the Fourth. Tall cowboys lounged 
 about, wearing their most ornamental tall boots, 
 
Lincoln Highway Sign. 2. Lincoln Highway Sign in Western Village. 3. Cowboys and Cowgirls 
 in Laramie. 4. Sage Brush in the Desert. 5. Last View of the Rockies leaving 
 Colorado. 6. Movers* Camp in Colorado. 
 
Of THt 
 
 v Of au«ov. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 181 
 
 their best silk shirts, and brightest neckties. The 
 streets in the evening were full of people, some on 
 horseback, some walking. Confetti, those noise- 
 makers known as “cluckers,” and the miniature 
 feather dusters called “ticklers,” were all in evi- 
 dence. Everybody was in good humour and in a 
 mood of expectation. 
 
 The morning of the Fourth we drove out to the 
 edge of the town to see the State University, a mod- 
 est cluster of good buildings. Then we drove about 
 the town to see the cowboys on their handsome 
 horses, and the young women who accompanied 
 them, riding easily astride. There was to be a 
 morning exhibition of lassoing, racing, and other 
 feats of skill and strength. We met many people 
 riding and driving into town, all in holiday dress. 
 But we pressed on Eastward. 
 
 We passed Red Buttes, having a grand view of 
 the wonderfully colored Buttes off to the left. 
 Masses of blue larkspur grew in the fields and 
 alongside the Highway. We had left our beloved 
 desert behind us and were in rolling grass and grain 
 country. Near the Colorado line we turned toward 
 the south to go to Denver, thereby missing the 
 Ames Monument on the direct route to Cheyenne. 
 
182 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 The mountains of Colorado now rose in the near 
 distance; rocky peaks, pine clad and snowy. At 
 this point we met some parties of travelers ; a motor 
 party from Lincoln, Nebraska, and another from 
 Lexington, Kentucky. Both motor cars were go- 
 ing into Laramie for the celebration of the Fourth. 
 The gentleman from Lexington, who was driving 
 his wife and himself, had a beautiful Locomobile 
 roadster, newly purchased in Chicago. His car had 
 every modern equipment and convenience, and he 
 was mightily proud of it. We all halted to enjoy 
 the grand view of the country toward which they 
 were moving and which we were leaving behind us. 
 Miles of rolling, grassy country, clean and wind- 
 swept, lay to the west. It was an inspiring pros- 
 pect, and filled us all with a sense of exaltation. 
 Said the Kentucky lady to me, “I felt as if every- 
 thing bad in me was swept clear out of me when I 
 first looked at this wonderful view.” A third 
 party of travelers came along from Cheyenne as we 
 stood gazing. They had a unique outfit, a prairie 
 schooner drawn by four burros abreast. The father 
 and mother, several children, and a friend lived 
 cheerfully in this moving house, making, they told 
 us, about fifteen miles a day. When they were 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 183 
 
 short of funds, they encamped in some town and 
 the men worked to replenish the treasury. They 
 had their household food supplies neatly packed on 
 shelves running along the sides of their canvas 
 canopy. 
 
 “This is our home,” said the husband and father. 
 The children were gentle little creatures, but looked 
 thin and underfed. All were bound for some un- 
 known haven on the Pacific coast or in the North- 
 west. They felt sure that they would find rich 
 farming country there still open to homesteaders. 
 
 What a contrast between the elegant Locomobile 
 car and the humble prairie wagon, drawn by four 
 shaggy burros, chosen because they could endure 
 hardships ! Our friends of the wagon allowed us to 
 take their picture, and we parted with mutual good 
 wishes. 
 
 We passed the Colorado State boundary marked 
 by a very simple board sign, and came into a new 
 country of rocks and hills. We came through a 
 canyon where we found some movers encamped in 
 a pleasant hollow by a mountain stream. South- 
 ward we moved, passing some fine rugged buttes 
 to our left. We took luncheon at a pleasant farm 
 house hotel, known as the Little Forks Hotel. Our 
 
184 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 farmer host and hostess were very agreeable and 
 gave us a refreshing meal. We left them to drive 
 on through Fort Collins, a very pleasant town in 
 the midst of alfalfa fields. 
 
 Just south of Fort Collins we turned to the right, 
 drove across the plains and entered the mouth of 
 the Big Thompson Canyon. We were en route for 
 the famous tract of mountain meadow, of forest and 
 canyon, known as Estes Park. 
 
 A long procession of motor cars was entering the 
 park and another line of cars kept passing us. 
 Many people were driving up the Canyon and many 
 were leaving after a day spent in picnicking. For 
 the most part the Canyon road ran very low and 
 close to the bed of the brawling river. It was a 
 most lovely road, winding and picturesque. Finally 
 we came to the end of the Canyon and entered the 
 green meadows which are at the beginning of the 
 Park itself. 
 
 We were told that the hotels and camps were 
 crowded, it being holiday time, and that we would 
 do well to stop at the simple but comfortable ranch 
 house located near by. We found ourselves com- 
 fortable indeed and were content to make the ranch 
 house a base for our driving expeditions. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 185 
 
 We were on the beautiful Lord Dunraven Ranch, 
 with its rich meadows admirably adapted for cattle 
 grazing. Our host was the manager of the ranch, 
 now largely owned by Mr. Stanley, the manufac- 
 turer of the Stanley Steamer. Farther up the val- 
 ley was the beautiful Stanley Hotel. 
 
 I had thought that Estes Park was a smooth and 
 shaven park region, not realzing that it was 
 a vast mountain territory, with high mountain 
 meadows overlooked by lofty peaks and diversified 
 by tracts of mountain forest. There are scores of 
 miles of driving and horseback riding in the Park, 
 plenty of hotels and camps in wonderfully beautiful 
 situations, and glorious fishing and mountain climb- 
 ing. One may gaze at the mountains from great 
 open meadows and camping sites from 8000 to 
 9000 feet above sea level. We lamented the fact 
 that we had only a day in which to see Estes Park. 
 We could have spent a week there in driving and 
 walking about. 
 
 Colorado is rich in mountain scenery and in beau- 
 tiful camping places for the lover of hills and 
 streams, the pedestrian and the fisherman. 
 
 We came down from the high plateau of the Park 
 by the canyon of the Little Thompson; a still more 
 
186 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 precipitous road than that of the Big Thompson 
 Canyon. Reaching Lyons, we turned toward 
 Boulder, driving along with alfalfa meadows to the 
 left and the foot hills of the Rockies to the right. 
 Our undulating road was an excellent one. 
 
 We enjoyed the wide sky, the rich grassy plains 
 stretching away to our left, with ranch houses 
 marked here and there by clumps of cottonwood 
 trees. We knew that this was irrigated country, 
 reclaimed from what was once a wide desert. After 
 a time we passed a wagon, canvas covered, drawn 
 by two plodding horses. I thought the driver must 
 be foreign, as he turned out to the left when we 
 came up behind him, but he quickly recovered him- 
 self and turned right. We soon left him far be- 
 hind us. 
 
 But suddenly there was a grinding sound. The 
 machine halted and refused to move. We were 
 stalled on the road and no amount of effort availed 
 to move us. Something had gone seriously wrong. 
 There was nothing for it but to push the machine to 
 the side of the road, and wait patiently for the trav- 
 elers in the covered wagon. We were six miles from 
 Boulder, and evidently had a serious break in 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 187 
 
 the machine. Later it transpired that our gears 
 were broken. 
 
 After a time the wagon came toiling along and its 
 occupants most hospitably invited me to drive into 
 Boulder with them. Two men, one elderly, the 
 other yoimg, were on the driver’s seat. In the 
 wagon were their two wives and a troop of little 
 children, the family of the younger pair, and the 
 grandchildren of the older pair. A happy collie 
 dog climbed wildly about over the children. “He’s 
 the biggest kid in the wagon,” said his master. 
 
 The party had been camping in a mountain can- 
 yon for their holiday and were now on their way 
 home. The men and women were English, the older 
 couple having been thirty-three years in this coun- 
 try. “I’ve dug coal for forty-five years,” said the 
 older man. 
 
 “Tell them you rode with one of the striking min- 
 ers, one of the sixteen who was put in jail. Put 
 that in your book,” he said with a grim twinkle. 
 (How did he know I was writing a book?) 
 
 “We’re poor but we’re gentlemen still. We 
 wouldn’t be slaves to Rockyfeller,” said the younger 
 
 man. 
 
188 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 A little later he asked for the jug of spring wa- 
 ter, and for “the bottle.” The women looked at me 
 dubiously, and tried to quiet him. “Come now,” he 
 said laughing, “there’s no use delayin’ matters. 
 Where’s the bottle?” So with some embarrassment 
 on the part of the women and much laughing on 
 the part of the men a full whiskey bottle was pro- 
 duced. Each man had a nip of whiskey and a nip 
 of cold water. 
 
 The children were merry little creatures, climb- 
 ing over one another and playing with the dog. 
 The youngest little girl slept peacefully, being ten- 
 derly watched by her mother and grandmother. 
 
 When we came into the wide streets of the tmi- 
 versity town of Boulder, I offered as delicately as 
 possible to pay for my six mile lift. But they would 
 have none of it. “No, no,” said the younger man 
 cordially, “we’re glad to help anybody in trouble.” 
 So I hastened over to the candy shop and bought a 
 box of the best chocolate candy for the children. 
 My last sight of them as they drove out of town was 
 of the little faces crowding happily around the box. 
 
 In Boulder we found The Boulderado a delight- 
 ful place in which to lodge, and the Quality Cafe- 
 teria a place for admirably cooked food. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 189 
 
 We had several days to wait for ovir machine to 
 be repaired, so we were free to enjoy Boulder and 
 to take the interurban electric car for Denver. 
 Boulder has a most picturesque situation, and is a 
 town of delightful homes and of fine State Univer- 
 sity buildings. I saw at Boulder the same soft sun- 
 set colors, the same delicate blues, pinks, and greys 
 that one sees in an Australian sunset. 
 
 Later we drove to Denver in our own car and 
 were free to enjoy the drives about the city. “The 
 Shirley” is a very well kept European hotel, and 
 if one wishes to take one’s food elsewhere there is 
 “Sell’s” with its delicious rolls and excellent coffee, 
 tea, and chocolate; and there is the Hoff-Stauffer 
 Cafeteria, presided over by a woman and offering 
 excellently cooked food to hosts of people. 
 
 Every traveler should view the sunset from 
 Cheesman Park in Denver. One can drive there 
 easily over the fine streets of the city. Beside the 
 pavilion, modeled on classic lines, one may sit in 
 one’s car and look off at one hundred and fifty 
 miles of mountains, stretching from Pike’s Peak on 
 the south to Long’s Peak on the north. It is a 
 grand view and should be seen more than once 
 to be fully appreciated. One may sit on the steps 
 
190 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 of the fine Capitol building just a mile above sea 
 level, and enjoy the same view. 
 
 Or one may take a famous mountain drive, 
 winding up and up a stiff mountain road until one 
 has reached the summit and can look down on miles 
 of plains and on the city of Denver in the distance. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 191 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Leaving Denver in the afternoon, we drove to 
 Boulder ; from Boulder to Plattville and from Platt- 
 ville due north to Greeley. All along to the left, 
 between Plattville and Greeley, we had fine views 
 of the whole line of mountains, and particularly of 
 Long’s Peak. Again we were impressed by the 
 fertility of the Colorado alfalfa fields and by the 
 rich green of its meadows. Greeley is a very attrac- 
 tive town with wide streets and with pretty homes 
 set in green lawns. It is well shaded, stands high, 
 and looks off to the noble line of mountains to the 
 south. Early on July 15th we left Greeley, taking 
 a last look at the glorious mountains to the south. 
 We passed through fields upon fields of alfalfa and 
 of grain. Great stacks of alfalfa everywhere dot- 
 ted the country. The greenness of the land was 
 
192 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 refreshing. Then we came into more rolling coun- 
 try, less cultivated. We were plainly in a new 
 part of the country, in this northwest corner of the 
 State. The houses were new, and often small. In 
 some places new houses stood alongside the old 
 ones, the earlier ones being made of tar paper and 
 looking like little cigari boxes. Some houses had 
 tents erected near them for use as barns. Some 
 houses were made of sod. There were very few 
 trees, most ranch houses looking bare and bald. We 
 passed quantities of a beautiful blue flower, grow- 
 ing sometimes in great patches. Its bell-shaped 
 flowers, sometimes rose, sometimes lavender, grew 
 on tall green stalks. We also saw a beautiful 
 starry white flower growing along the roadside. At 
 Sterling we had a particularly good luncheon at 
 the Southern Hotel on the main street. We ex- 
 horted our host and hostess to put out a Lincoln 
 Highway sign, so that none should miss their ex- 
 cellent table. 
 
 We saw our old friends, the Matilija poppies, 
 growing along the roadside as we went along in the 
 hot afternoon. This was one of the hottest days of 
 driving that we had in all our tour, and in it we 
 made our longest run, two hundred and eight miles. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 193 
 
 We took early supper at the Commercial Hotel at 
 Julesburg. Not long after leaving Julesburg we 
 came upon a flamboyant sign which announced that 
 we were nineteen miles from Ogallala, Nebraska. 
 The sign also informed us with particular emphasis 
 that Ogallala was “a wet town.” We had crossed 
 the State line and had left behind us Colorado with 
 its mountains, its green meadows, its wild yuccas, 
 its Matilija poppies, and its dark masses of pine 
 trees. 
 
 As we drove along in the dusky twilight, little 
 owls kept flying low in front of our car, attracted 
 by its lights. Sometimes a rabbit sat in the middle 
 of the road, blinking and bewildered. We always 
 gave him time to recover himself and leap into the 
 shadows of the roadside. We had had another ex- 
 quisite sunset with the same soft pastel shades that 
 I had seen at Boulder. During the day we had 
 seen many meadow larks, red-winged black birds, 
 and doves. We had seen, too, many sparrow hawks, 
 sitting silent on the fence posts, waiting for the ap- 
 proach of evening. In one place we saw a poor 
 young meadow lark, hanging dead from a barbed 
 wire fence. He had evidently in flyipg struck his ^ 
 throat full against one of the barbs and had hung 
 
194 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 there, impaled to death. At Ogallala we found a 
 very comfortable lodging house. The Hollings- 
 worth, built over a garage. We had a good room 
 there, although it was impossible to find a cool spot 
 on that broiling night. 
 
 The next morning, as we took breakfast at a 
 nearby restaurant, we learned that Ogallala had 
 had a grand contest and had “gone dry” two weeks 
 before. An enthusiastic gentleman who had taken 
 part in the conflict told us that already the town 
 was wonderfully changed. We congratulated him 
 and urged him to see to it that the sign nineteen 
 miles to the west heralded Ogallala as a dry town 
 rather than a wet one. 
 
 The next day was cooler. The mountains had 
 disappeared, and only wide rolling fields, sometimes 
 as level as a floor, lay before us. We were crossing 
 Nebraska. We came by a rather poor road, really 
 a grassy trail, to North Platte, where we had lunch- 
 eon at the Vienna Cafe. As we were driving along 
 between Ogallala and North Platte, the grass grow- 
 ing high in the road tracks, we came suddenly upon 
 a bevy of fat quail walking in the road. As they 
 flew somewhat heavily, I felt sure that our wheel 
 had struck some of them. So I went back to see. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 195 
 
 Three of them lay dead in the road, having been 
 imable to fly in time to avoid the wheels. The noise 
 of our machine had been muffled by the fact that 
 that we were driving over a grassy road and they 
 had not heard us until we were on them. We were 
 sorry indeed to have killed the beautiful little brown 
 creatures. All through California and Colorado 
 we had seen them, as they were constantly flying 
 up in front of the machine and running off to cover. 
 All along, the killdeer were darting about, calling 
 loudly and piercingly. 
 
 Beyond North Platte we came upon a country 
 house which had been pre-empted by a jolly house 
 party of girls from town. They had put out some 
 facetious signs: “Fried Chicken Wanted” and 
 “Votes for Women.” We stopped to call upon 
 them and told them of our trip across the country, 
 while they insisted upon serving us with cake and 
 lemonade. 
 
 Late in the day we passed some groups of mov- 
 ers, their horses and cattle with them. We saw 
 glorious flelds of corn and of alfalfa, and we 
 saw flelds dotted with little mounds or cocks of 
 wheat and of millet. Four miles before coming 
 into Kearney, we passed the famous sign which 
 
196 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 marks the distance halfway between San Francisco 
 and Boston. We had seen a print of this sign, 
 pointing 1,733 miles West to Frisco and East 
 1,733 miles to Boston, on the cover of our Lin- 
 coln Highway guide, issued by the Packard 
 Motor Car Company. We stopped now to take a 
 photograph of it. A woman living in a farmhouse 
 across the road was much interested in our halt. 
 She said that almost every motor party passing 
 stopped to photograph the sign. 
 
 We heard from her of two young women who 
 were walking from coast to coast, enjoying the 
 country and its adventures. Somehow we missed 
 them in making the detour from Laramie to Den- 
 ver. We had seen their photographs on postcards 
 which they were selling to help meet their expenses. 
 They were sisters, and looked very striking and 
 romantic in their walking dress. They wore broad- 
 brimmed hats, loose blouses with rolling collars, and 
 wide trousers, tucked into high laced boots such as 
 engineers wear. Each carried a small revolver at 
 her belt. We were sorry to have missed seeing 
 them against the picturesque background of the 
 Wyoming plains. 
 
 At Kearney we had supper at “Jack’s Place,” 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 197 
 
 and went on in the twilight to Minden, where we 
 proposed stopping at “The Humphrey.” We passed 
 through long fields of corn and over lonely rolling 
 prairies. The cornfields with their rows of tasseled 
 stalks were like the dark, silent ranks of a waiting 
 army, caped and hooded, standing motionless until 
 marching orders came. The air was clear and fine, 
 and the electric lights of Minden shone from afar 
 with the brilliance of stars. 
 
 From Minden, we came by way of Campbell to 
 Bed Cloud, where we had luncheon at the Royal 
 Hotel. 
 
 We had made this detour to Minden and Red 
 Cloud in order to call upon a friend who is enthu- 
 siastic over his fine ranch near Red Cloud. Gal- 
 loway cattle are his specialty, and he finds the roll- 
 ing plains of southern Nebraska a fine place to 
 breed them. From Red Cloud we came on in the 
 afternoon through Blue Hill to Hastings, and 
 through Hastings to Fremont. We were en route 
 for Lincoln, where we hoped to spend the night. 
 Between Minden and Red Cloud the country is 
 very rolhng, and sweeps away from the eye in great 
 undulations. High on some of these ridges were 
 fine silhouettes outlined against the sky: loaded 
 
198 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 wagons bringing in the sheaves of grain; men stand- 
 ing high, feeding these sheaves to the insatiable 
 maw of the threshing machine; a boy standing in 
 the grain wagon as the thick yellow stream poured 
 into it, leveling the grain with a spade; all these 
 and many other pictures of the Idyl of Harvest. 
 For two hundred miles of our run the smoke of 
 the threshing machines rose in the clear sky. 
 
 Sometimes the fields were covered with stacks 
 of wheat looking like great yellow bee-hives. Some- 
 times the wheat was in rounded mounds or cocks. 
 Surely we were seeing the bread of a nation on 
 these vast Nebraska plains. 
 
 Along the roadsides were quantities of “snow on 
 the mountain,” its delicate grey-green leaves edged 
 with a pure white border. Across the fields the 
 killdeer were flying, and calling in their shrill, clear 
 notes, which always seem to breathe of the sea. 
 They were not out of place, flying above these long 
 billows of brown earth. The farmhouses were 
 marked by clumps of cottonwood trees, and as we 
 moved Eastward a few low evergreens began to 
 appear. 
 
 Around Blue Hill the country is very fine, being 
 a great plateau stretching off into illimitable dis- 
 
BX THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY. 199 
 
 tances. As we climbed the hill to the little town 
 we met a farmer in his wagon who had just des- 
 patched a bull snake, a thick, ugly-looking crea- 
 ture. We stopped to pass the time of day, and he 
 told us that he came to Nebraska from Illinois in 
 ’79 in a covered wagon. He was enthusiastic over 
 Nebraska. 
 
 We made another stop to watch at close range 
 the operations of a threshing machine. It was a fine 
 sight. Two yellow streams came from the spouts 
 of the machine ; a great stream of chaff which rap- 
 idly piled up in a yellow mountain, and another 
 stream of the heavy grain, pouring thiek and fast 
 into a wagon. One of the men told us that they 
 had threshed fourteen hundred bushels the day be- 
 fore, working foiuteen hours in fine, clear weather. 
 
 Everywhere the lovely grey doves were flying. 
 There were hundreds of young meadow larks, too, 
 and great numbers of red-winged blackbirds. It 
 was on the 17th of July that I saw brown thrushes 
 for the first time. It is interesting to watch the 
 movements of the birds as the machine approaches. 
 The doves in the road fly promptly. They do not 
 take chances on being struck by the car. The 
 sparrows wait until the last moment and then 
 
200 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 neatly save themselves. I often wondered how they 
 could escape with so narrow a margin. We 
 thought that the red-headed woodpeckers must be 
 rather clumsy, as we saw a number of them that 
 had been struck by other cars, and thrown just off 
 the road. 
 
 It was impossible to reach Lincoln that night, so 
 we stopped at a country inn some miles away. Ris- 
 ing early, we drove into Lincoln for breakfast. 
 After a run about the city and a look at the build- 
 ings of the State University, we drove on toward 
 Omaha. Unfortunately we attempted to take a 
 cross-cut and found ourselves in an odd situation. 
 We were driving down an unfrequented hill road, 
 in an attempt to cut across to the main road, marked 
 by white bands on the telephone poles. We sud- 
 denly found ourselves hanging high and dry above 
 the ruts of the road. The rain had worn them so 
 deep and the middle of the road had remained so 
 hard and dry, that on the hillside we were literally 
 astride the ridge in the middle of the road. This 
 meant a long journey on foot to a farmhouse to 
 borrow a spade and a pick. It also meant much 
 hacking and digging away at the hard earth under 
 the body of the machine to release the axles and 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 201 
 
 drop the wheels to the road. Finally it was ac- 
 complished. We picked up the farmer’s children 
 who had come out to see the rescue and drove down 
 the long hill to the farmhouse. There we left our 
 implements and our hearty thanks. How hopeless 
 it seems when one is hung up on the road! And 
 how blissful it is to bowl along freely once more! 
 Still the doves flew about us by the hundred and 
 the brown thrushes increased in number. We had 
 more level country now, and it was only as we ap- 
 proached Omaha that it became hilly. 
 
 We left Omaha, after looking about the city, late 
 in the afternoon and drove one hundred and eight 
 miles to Carroll in Iowa. The flrst twenty miles 
 out of Omaha the road was extremely poor and very 
 dusty. The trees were much more numerous, black 
 walnut, maple, ash, and catalpa being among them. 
 
 Just as we felt that one could And his way across 
 Nevada by a trail of whiskey bottles so we began 
 to feel that one could cross Iowa on a trail marked 
 by dead fowls. I had never before seen so many 
 chickens killed by motor cars. Perhaps the expla- 
 nation lay in the fact that all along our one hun- 
 dred and eight miles from Omaha to Carroll we 
 passed numbers of farmers driving Ford cars. As 
 
202 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 we approached Carroll, we came to a hill top from 
 which we looked down on a valley of tasseled corn 
 fields. It was exactly like looking down on an 
 immense, shining green rug, with yellow tufts 
 thrown up over its green surface. We saw hut few 
 orchards. This was a corn country. 
 
 Carroll is a pleasant little town, with fine street 
 lamps, and with a green park around its Court- 
 house. We were surprised to find so good a hotel 
 as Burke’s Hotel in a small town. Its landlady 
 and proprietor has recently made extensive im- 
 provements in it, and it is a place of vantage on the 
 Highway. The country around Carroll is very fine, 
 being rolling and beautifully cultivated. 
 
 We reached Carroll very late in the day and were 
 obliged to take our supper at a restaurant near the 
 ~ hotel. We were interested in a party of four young 
 people who were evidently out for a good time. 
 The two young gentlemen, by a liberal use of twen- 
 ty-five cent pieces, kept the mechanical piano 
 pounding out music all through their meal. They 
 were both guiltless of coats and waist-coats. We 
 had seen all through the West men in all sorts of 
 public assemblies, more or less formal, wearing only 
 their shirts and trousers, So we had become some- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 203 
 
 what accustomed to what we called the shirt-waist 
 habit. 
 
 Many customs of the West strike the eye of the 
 Easterner with astonishment. This custom which 
 permits men to be at ease in publie plaees and in 
 the presence of ladies without coat or waist-coat in 
 hot weather ; the custom which permits ladies to sit 
 in church without their hats ; these and others which 
 belong to the free West, the Easterner has to be- 
 come aecustomed to and to take kindly. Several 
 times in California, and in Nevada, when we asked 
 a question we received the cheerful, if uneonven- 
 tional response, “You bet !” “Will you please bring 
 me a glass of water?” “You bet!” “We’re on the 
 Lincoln Highway, are we not?” “You bet!” 
 These somewhat startling responses simply indi- 
 cated a most eheerful spirit and a hearty readiness 
 to do you any favor possible. 
 
 Leaving Carroll, we come on through Ames, 
 Jefferson, Marshalltown, and Belle Plain, into 
 Cedar Rapids. Out from Carroll we have rather 
 bumpy roads for some time. Then the road im- 
 proves and is exeellent from Ames on until we near 
 Cedar Rapids. But all along work is being done 
 on the roads and their improvement is a matter of 
 
204 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 great local interest. We pass a point in Marshall 
 County where they are working with a new machine 
 for cutting down the road. I call it a dirt-eating 
 machine. The commissioner is extremely proud of 
 it, and calls our attention to the immense amount of 
 work it can do, and to the huge mouthfuls of earth 
 which it bites out from the bank, through which the 
 wider road is to run. We are charmed with the 
 lovely country around Marshalltown, and with the 
 very beautiful country between Belle Plain and 
 Cedar Rapids. We drive through the campus and 
 past the buildings of the State Agricultural Col- 
 lege at Ames as we come into the town. 
 
 We are passing beautiful farms. Here we see a 
 group of splendid dappled grey Percheron draught 
 horses, the pride of a stock-farm. There we pass 
 reddish-yellow shocks of oats. The country is more 
 wooded now. We see maples, oaks, ash, willows, 
 and black walnuts. Here and there are yellow 
 wild flowers, somewhat like black-eyed Susans. 
 One thing we remark in all these Middle Western 
 farms. There seem to be almost no flowers around 
 the farm houses. An English farmhouse or a 
 French farmhouse would have a riot of flowers 
 growing all about and making a mass of color. We 
 
B’X: THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 205 
 
 miss this in our Western farms and wonder why it 
 is that we see so little color. We see practically no 
 orchards, and very few grape-vines. This is the 
 country of wheat and oats. We have left the or- 
 chards and the vineyards far behind us in lovely 
 California. 
 
 Cedar Rapids is a busy city with several hotels. 
 Leaving the city on the morning of July 21st, we 
 drive first through quite heavily wooded country. 
 Then the view opens out and we are once more driv- 
 ing over beautiful, undulating country with rich 
 Crops of oats and corn. The perfume of the corn, 
 standing tall and green, is delicious. When we pass 
 through Mt. Vernon, we take a look at the build- 
 ings of Wesleyan College, which stands on a high 
 ridge commanding a fine view. All the way to 
 Clinton the country is attractive. After luncheon 
 at the pleasant town of Clinton, we cross the broad 
 Mississippi, looking up and down its green shores 
 with delight. We are in Illinois now, and find Ster- 
 ling and Dixon attractive towns on the Rock 
 River, a stream dotted with green islands. The 
 coimtry is very open, with long stretches of prairie, 
 green with standing corn or red-yellow with shocks 
 of oats. We spend the night in De Kalb at a funny 
 
206 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 old hotel, built, they tell us, by Mr. Glidden, the 
 “barbed-wire king.” The hotel is called “The 
 Glidden.” Its ceilings are twenty feet high and we 
 feel ourselves to be in “a banquet hall deserted.” 
 From De Kalb we make a short detour into Chi- 
 cago, returning to the Highway at Joliet. 
 
 Joliet is a smoky city, full of factories and 
 busy with the world’s work. It is late afternoon 
 when we reach Joliet, and we drive on to Elkhart, 
 where we put up at a beautiful hotel with every 
 modern convenience. The Indiana roads are in ex- 
 cellent condition and take us through a lovely roll- 
 ing country of oaks and beech forests, and of fields 
 of grain breathing pastoral peace and prosperity. 
 
 All along through the Middle West we have been 
 pleased to see the immense interest taken in the Lin- 
 coln Highway. Everywhere one sees the Lincoln 
 Highway signs used in abundance on the streets 
 through which the Highway passes. The telephone 
 poles, the garages, and sometimes the shops, all are 
 marked with the familiar red, white, and blue. 
 They tell us of a Western town whose citizens 
 were so anxious to have their town on the Highway 
 that they of their own responsibility painted red, 
 white, and blue signs on the telephone poles lead- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 207 
 
 ing into and through the town. Later they were 
 reluctantly obliged to paint out these signs, as the 
 Highway was not taken through their town. 
 
 The names of the farms in the Middle West are 
 many of them very interesting; as “Rolling Prairie 
 Farm,” “Round Prairie Farm,” “Burr Oak Valley 
 Farm,” “Hickory Grove Farm,” and “Hill Brook 
 Farm.” 
 
 At the entrance to a farm in Illinois a farmer 
 has nailed a shelf to a telephone pole near his gate, 
 and on this shelf he has placed a small bust of Lin- 
 coln. I fancy this is a prophecy of many monu- 
 ments that we shall see along the Lincoln High- 
 way in days to come. 
 
 We come into Ohio through the pleasant town 
 of Van Wert, and drive on through fields of corn 
 and wheat to Lima ; and here we leave the Lincoln 
 Highway for the present. We are to make a de- 
 tour into Logan County, and from there we plan 
 to travel southeast into the Old Dominion. 
 
 We spend a number of days in Logan County, 
 driving about over the hills and through the val- 
 leys. This, too, is rolling country. I know it well, 
 for here I spent my childhood. I know these for- 
 ests of oak and hickory, and these rich fields of corn 
 
208 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 and wheat. I know the delicious scent of clover 
 fields in the warm summer twilights. I recall the 
 names that my girlhood friend and I used to give 
 to the farmhouses as we drove about; “The Potato 
 House,” “The Dinner Bell House,” “The Little 
 Red House,” and others. They are all there, and 
 but little changed, although the people who live in 
 them have probably changed. 
 
 We are told by a friend, who is a motor enthu- 
 siast, that she recently killed a turkey on the road. 
 In all my motoring experience I have never seen a 
 turkey, a guinea fowl or a duck, killed by a motor. 
 But my friend tells me that they found it impossi- 
 ble to escape this particular turkey, as he refused 
 to get out of the way. 
 
 We passed three little girls one day, all astride 
 the same horse, driving the cows home from pas- 
 ture. We asked them to stand while we took their 
 picture. They were greatly distressed. “We have 
 on our dirty clothes,” said they. “Never mind,” 
 we said. “But our hair isn’t combed!” they ex- 
 claimed. “Never mind,” we said again. “You will 
 look all right in the picture.” And so they do. 
 
 The devices and pennants with which motorists 
 advertise themselves and express their enjoyment 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 209 
 
 are very interesting. Some carry pennants with 
 the names of the towns or the States from which 
 they come. Others carry pennants with the names 
 of all the principal towns which they have visited. 
 Whole clusters of pennants are fastened about the 
 car, and float gaily in the wind. Some carry a pen- 
 nant across the rear of the tonneau, which reads, 
 “Excuse my dust.” Others carry a pennant in 
 the same place which reads, “Thank you.” 
 
 We infer that this must be by way of courtesy 
 to those cars which turn out for them to pass and fly 
 on ahead. We meet many tourists in the Middle 
 West who have been for more or less extended tours 
 in the States near their own. 
 
210 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 We were sorry to leave the wooded hills and the 
 green valleys of Logan County and press on to the 
 southeast. Driving through Delaware, Ohio, we 
 stopped to see the campus and fine buildings of 
 Ohio Wesleyan University, and then came on by 
 way of Columbus to Granville. Leaving Colum- 
 bus we found the road very wet and heavy from the 
 recent rains, which had fallen after a drought of 
 many weeks. We lost our way in coming into 
 Granville, and had to inquire directions at the house 
 of a farmer. He was so kindly that we were moved 
 to express to him a hope that he might some day 
 have a motor. “Well, I don’t begrudge ’em to no- 
 body even if I can’t have one myself,” said he cheer- 
 fully. 
 
 We came into the broad main street of Gran- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 211 
 
 ville, the lights shining, the leaves of the maple 
 trees glistening with the rain which had fallen ear- 
 lier in the day. If ever there was a New England 
 town in a Western State, Granville is that town. 
 It was founded more than a hundred years ago by 
 Connecticut people, and it bears the impress of its 
 founders to-day. Its wide street, its old churches, 
 its white houses with green shutters, its look of com- 
 fort and cleanliness, all are typically New England. 
 We had a most comfortable night at the old fash- 
 ioned Hotel Buxton, and drove up on the hill in 
 the beautiful clear morning to see the buildings of 
 Denison University. The University is very finely 
 situated on a high ridge overlooking the wooded 
 town, and commanding a fine view of the green 
 valley beyond. There is a brick terrace on the hill- 
 side, with an ornamental sundial, where one may 
 enjoy the rich champaign below. Back of the col- 
 lege buildings, which look out over the valley, the 
 hill plunges down into a fine forest of beeches. The 
 student at Granville has beautiful surroundings for 
 his years of study. Emerson said that the moun- 
 tains around an institution should be put in the col- 
 lege curriculum. Granville students certainly 
 should include in their curriculum the beauty of 
 
212 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 beech forests and the richness of the Ohio farming 
 country. 
 
 From Granville on to Zanesville the coimtry in- 
 creases in charm. It is rich and fertile, gently 
 rolling, diversified by fine beeches and elms. Here 
 and there are plenteous corn fields. But Ohio farm- 
 houses do not seem to cultivate more flowers than 
 do the farmhouses of Iowa and Illinois. Reaching 
 Zanesville we are greeted by a great sign suspended 
 across the road above our heads. It reads, “Hello! 
 Glad you came. Just drive carefully. Zanesville 
 Motorcycle Cluh.” In leaving we pass under a 
 similar sign and find that it reads on its reverse side, 
 “Thank you I Come again. Zanesville Motorcycle 
 Club.’’ We are on the old National Road now, and 
 find it rather poor. It is uneven, and is rendered 
 humpy by the constant road bars. The country 
 grows more hilly, and the towns are beginning to 
 change character. Newark is an attractive little 
 city, standing rather high. “Old Washington” has 
 very old red brick houses, and St. Clairsville is an 
 attractive old town. The towns remind one of the 
 old Pennsylvania towns. The houses are built flush 
 with the sidewalk just as one sees them in Pennsyl- 
 vania. Many of the farmhouses are built of sub- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 213 
 
 stantial red brick, with white porches. 
 
 About nine miles from Wheeling, West Virginia, 
 we come along a fine road to a most beautiful hill- 
 top view. Prosperous farms and farmhouses are 
 all about, the farmhouses standing high on the 
 green, rounded tops of the hills. The National 
 Road being under repair, we take a detour in order 
 to reach Wheeling. A hospitable sign at the en- 
 trance to our roimdabout road to the right reads, 
 “This road open. Bellaire bids you welcome.” We 
 learn later that there are in this region what are 
 called Ridge Roads and Valley Roads. We are 
 entering Bellaire by a Ridge Road, and have fine 
 views of hilltop farmhouses and barns, and of hill- 
 top cornfields, all the way. We drop down a steep 
 hill into Bellaire, turn north to Bridgeport, and 
 from there turn east across the Ohio River into the 
 city of Wheeling. 
 
 From Wheeling we drive on into Pennsylvania, 
 through Washington, a hill city, to Uniontown. 
 The whole coimtry is hilly and we are constantly 
 enjoying fine views. Around Uniontown many no- 
 ble trees are dying. They tell us that this is the lo- 
 cust year, and that these trees are victims of the 
 voracious insects. Beyond Uniontown we sweep up 
 
214 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 a long hill, over a splendid road, to the Summit 
 House. The hotel is closed, so we go on over the 
 hills to a simpler hotel which is open all the year. 
 This is the Chalk Hill House, and here we have 
 true country comfort. For supper we have fried 
 chicken, fried ham, fried hasty pudding, huckle- 
 berries, strawberry preserves, real maple syrup, wa- 
 ter melon rind pickles, cookies, cake, apple sauce, 
 flannel cakes, and coffee. This is Pennsylvania 
 hospitality. Chalk Hill is 2100 feet above sea level, 
 and we have fine mountain air. We learn that 
 Braddock’s troops in their famous march to the 
 West passed only 500 yards back of where the 
 Chalk Hill House now stands. We ask our fel- 
 low travelers at the inn about a very tall monu- 
 ment which we passed, between Washington and 
 Uniontown, on a hilltop. It is eighty-five feet 
 high, and bears the name of McCutcheon. We are 
 told that Mr. McCutcheon’s will directed that all 
 his money should be spent in the erection of this 
 monument to his memory. So there it stands. 
 
 Our route lies through Cumberland to Hagers- 
 town, and from Hagerstown through Martinsburg 
 to Winchester, Virginia. We are crossing the 
 southwest corner of Pennsylvania, and coming into 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 215 
 
 Maryland on the northwest corner ; passing through 
 a small triangle of West Virginia, and entering 
 Virginia by the northwest. 
 
 Not long after leaving Chalk Hill House we 
 pass on the left the comparatively new monument 
 which marks Braddock’s grave. A beautiful bronze 
 tablet on one side of the granite shaft reads : “This 
 bronze tablet was erected and dedicated to the mem- 
 ory of Major-General Edward Braddock by the 
 officers of his old regiment, the Coldstream Guards 
 of England, October 15th, 1913.” Another bronze 
 tablet has been placed by the Braddock Memorial 
 Park Association of Fayette County, Pennsylva- 
 nia. There is also in has relief a bust of Braddock 
 in military dress. The great seals of the United 
 States and of Great Britain adorn the shaft. The 
 main inscription on the shaft reads: 
 
 Here lieth the remains of Major-Gen- 
 eral Edward Braddock who, in command 
 of the 44th and 48th regiments of Eng- 
 lish regulars was mortally wounded in an 
 engagement with the French and Indians 
 under the command of Captain M. de 
 Beaujeu at the battle of the Monongahela, 
 
216 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 within ten miles of Fort Duquesne, now 
 Pittsburg, July 9, 1755. 
 
 He was borne back with the retreating 
 army to the old orchard camp, about one- 
 fourth of a mile west of this park, where 
 he died July 13, 1755. Lieutenant Colo- 
 nel George Washington read the burial 
 service at the grave. 
 
 We are on historic ground all along here. A 
 little farther down the road we pass a tablet on a 
 roadside boulder, erected in 1913 by the Great 
 Crossing Chapter of the Daughters of the Ameri- 
 can Revolution, to mark the old “Nemacolin’s 
 trail,” so named from the Delaware Indian guide 
 for the Ohio Company. The tablet records that 
 Washington passed this way in 1753, 1754, and 
 1755. 
 
 On the right of the road we pass a very old farm- 
 house of red brick, back of which in a swampy 
 meadow is the site of the camp of Braddock’s 
 forces. We go down the cow lane to see the old 
 camp, whose outlines are marked. 
 
 We are in a region of fine old stone bridges, and 
 of beautiful orchard country, alternating with roll- 
 
Braddock’s Monument near Uniontown, Pa. 2. Old Farmhouse near Braddock’s Camp. 3. Historic 
 
 Inn at Hancock. Md. 
 
ubrary 
 
 Oi THE 
 
 UKSVERbiTY OF ILLINOIS 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 217 
 
 ing hills covered with heavy forest. At Grants- 
 ville we pass the old Dorsey House, now called 
 the Hotel Castleman. This used to he a hostel 
 much frequented by the farmers. A small boy who 
 is playing in the street and who is sojourning here 
 for the summer gives us this information, and adds 
 that at the Hotel Castleman you have “lots to eat, 
 and plenty of it.” We are sorry that it is not lun- 
 cheon time so that we could put his statement to the 
 test. Passing through Grantsville we cross the 
 old Castleman Bridge, an immense single span of 
 stone. Another fine old bridge with very sohd 
 buttresses spans Conococheague Creek. 
 
 After luncheon in Cumberland, we press east to 
 Hagerstown. We are advised that we will find the 
 road far better if we drive east to Hagerstown and 
 then southwest to Winchester, instead of taking 
 the direct southeast route to Winchester from Cum- 
 berland. We have an excellent road from Cum- 
 berland to Hagerstown, and find the rich orchard 
 country very beautiful. Ten miles from Cumber- 
 land, we come upon a point of vantage from which 
 we have a most lovely view. As we near the town 
 of Hancock with its famous old inn the coxmtry 
 is still more interesting. We look down on the 
 
218 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 gleaming Potomac, winding through green fields 
 and beautifully cultivated orchards. This is fa- 
 mous apple and peach country. Every year more 
 of the virgin forest on the mountainside is cleared 
 and planted to young apple and peach trees. The 
 soil and the climate are most admirably adapted to 
 the growing of fruit, and there are immense invest- 
 ments in these beautiful orchards. What a fair, 
 fair country! After we pass Hancock we look 
 down on the canal near which our road runs. A 
 canal boat passes, the mules walking leisurely along 
 the towpath. A boy stands at the helm looking out 
 on the beautiful landscape of forest, orchard, and 
 field. Clothes flap from the clothes-line on the boat. 
 It is a fine life, we think, this gliding along so se- 
 curely between green fields and orchards and 
 clumps of forest. 
 
 Hagerstown is a pleasant town in which to spend 
 the night. We enjoy walking about the streets and 
 seeing some of the old houses. Even the main 
 street of Hagerstown still has one fine old stone 
 house, low and solid, painted yellow. It is the only 
 residence left on the business street, its owner not 
 yet having been tempted by its increased value to 
 sell it. 
 
1. “Moore House’’ at Yorktown, Va., where terms were drawn up 
 after the Surrender of Cornwallis. 2. Castleman Bridge, Md. 
 
 3. Old Church Tower on Jamestown Island. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLIMOi 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 219 
 
 From Hagerstown there are fine shale roads in 
 our drive south to Winchester. After passing 
 through old Williamsport we cross the Potomac on 
 a long bridge. All along these roads the motorist 
 is annoyed by many toll gates at which he is halted 
 to pay toll. These are the landmarks of other times 
 and of old customs. These roads were originally 
 built and maintained by private companies. They 
 are fast being bought up by the State, and in a few 
 years the toll gates will disappear. As we ap- 
 proach Winchester the country becomes more pros- 
 perous in appearance than it is around Martins- 
 bimg. West Virginia. Five miles from Winches- 
 ter we pass two fine old red brick farm houses with 
 white porches. We are at last in the Old Dominion, 
 and look forward with high spirits to a tour among 
 the Virginia towns and cities. 
 
 Winchester is a very old town, with a fascina- 
 tion that grows upon one. It is a simple little place, 
 with a certain placidity and quiet that are very 
 soothing. Here is the Winchester Inn with its 
 wide porches and high ceilings. And here is Mrs. 
 Nancy Cobles’s private boarding-house, whose very 
 appearance breathes of homelike comfort and 
 Southern hospitality. The Winchester Inn an- 
 
220 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 nounces that it is “refurnished, refitted, reland- 
 lorded.” 
 
 In Winchester is the little old building used as 
 a sm*veyor’s ofiice by young Washington when 
 he was working for Lord Fairfax. Here is fine 
 old Christ Church, endowed by Thomas, Lord Fair- 
 fax, whose ashes rest underneath the church. 
 
 In Winchester I begin to see very interesting 
 and perfectly clear traces of old Colonial days. 
 There are quaint old names on the grave stones; 
 “Judith,” “Mary Ann,” “Parthenia.” Here is the 
 old English name of Fauntleroy. And here are old 
 houses with fan-lights over the doors. 
 
 It is in Winchester, too, that I begin to sense 
 the tragedy and awfulness of the Civil War, as 
 traced by many a sad inscription on many a grave- 
 stone. Hundreds of Southern dead are sleeping 
 in the Winchester cemeteries. There are monu- 
 ments to many unknown dead. “Unknown dead 
 from Winchester battlefield,” “Unknown dead 
 from Cedar Creek battlefield,” and so on. There 
 are monuments to “the brothers Ashby,” and to 
 “the Patton brothers.” How young are the ages 
 given on many of these stones! Nineteen, twenty- 
 three, twenty-nine. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 221 
 
 Our most interesting call in Winchester is' upon 
 a lady who is the owner and manager of a farm of 
 8000 apple trees, 7000 of which she has set out her- 
 self within the past five years, “every tree in a 
 dynamited hole, every tree pruned by a govern- 
 ment expert.” She tells us that all she knows of 
 apple culture she has learned by a careful study of 
 government pamphlets. Her orchard is about five 
 miles from town, and she drives out daily from her 
 pleasant home . She tells us that her apples are 
 sent to Jersey City and there kept in cold storage. 
 Late in the season she sells them, getting sometimes 
 as high as $7.50 a barrel toward the end of the 
 winter. As we talk with her we wonder why it is 
 that more women do not go in for apple culture. 
 Surely it is a delightful vocation, clean, healthful, 
 invigorating, and profitable. 
 
 Our friend tells us laughingly that so far as her 
 experience goes, negro servants are “still proving 
 to their former owners that they are free.” She re- 
 lates an experience with a young negro maid, who 
 after eight months of happy service with her, during 
 which time she had the best of training, suddenly 
 left her. She took a new position just across the 
 street and for exactly the same wages as her old 
 
222 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 situation had given her. When her former mistress 
 asked her why it was that she was leaving, she gig- 
 gled and said demurely, “I mus’ do de bes’ I kin 
 fo’ myse’f.” 
 
 From Winchester we drive to Staunton over a 
 fine road. From the fine country about Winches- 
 ter, dotted with beautiful orchards, down through 
 Harrisonburg in the midst of great grain and hay 
 farms, we are passing through the famous Shenan- 
 doah Valley. We see it at a disadvantage, for the 
 months of dry weather have burned the fields brown 
 and dry and increased the dust of the roads. But 
 it is beautiful still, a fair and prosperous farming 
 country. We pass through Harrisonburg on court 
 day, and the town is filled with farmers who make 
 of this day a general market day. 
 
 As we approach Staunton we come again into 
 orchard country. We have been passing through 
 many miles of farms devoted to grain. On the left, 
 as one enters Staunton, is Chilton Hall, standing 
 high above the town. Chilton Hall, kept by a wo- 
 man, is a fine new private house, transformed into 
 a tourist hostel. It looks most attractive. We go 
 on into Staunton as we wish to be in the heart of 
 the town. We establish ourselves very comfortably 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 223 
 
 for a few days at “The Shenandoah,” also kept by 
 a woman. Here we have for a very moderate price 
 a room with a private bath. We enjoy fresh milk 
 and cream, home-made butter, jams, and jellies, 
 and all the good things of a hospitable Virginia ta- 
 ble. We visit the famous Mary Baldwin Seminary, 
 an exquisitely kept institution. We also see the 
 Episcopal Church school in its fine old building, 
 Stuart Hall, and we walk past the Presbyterian 
 manse where President Wilson was born. We visit 
 the fine cemetery and read the sad inscriptions on 
 the head stones. One, erected to a young officer 
 of thirty years, reads, “Here lies a gallant soldier,” 
 and adds that he fell fighting “in the great battle 
 of Manassas.” In this cemetery there are 870 
 Southern dead whose names are given. There are 
 also about 700 soldiers lying here, “not recorded by 
 name.” The inscription speaks of them as “un- 
 known yet well known.” There are quaint names 
 of women on the old stones here, as in Winchester; 
 “Johanah,” and “Edmonia.” And there are old 
 English names; as Barclay, Warwick, Peyton, 
 Prettyman, Eskridge, and Harrow. 
 
 During our stay in Staunton we take a day for a 
 drive to the Natural Bridge. It is charming coun- 
 
224 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 try through which we drive, growing more broken 
 and wooded as we go farther south. We find the 
 road bumpy and dusty, but not at all impracticable. 
 We have our luncheon with us, and after paying a 
 somewhat exorbitant fee of one dollar apiece for 
 entrance to the natural park which includes the 
 Bridge scenery, we walk along the ravine beside the 
 little river, to the mighty arch of the Bridge itself. 
 It is a noble span of rock, of an enormous thickness, 
 on so grand a scale that it is difficult to realize its 
 height and width. We have our luncheon beside 
 the stream in the forest, and drive back to Staun- 
 ton. The wooded Virginia hills and the fields are 
 beautiful in the afternoon sunlight. 
 
 In returning to Staunton we stop in Lexington 
 to see the old cemetery where Stonewall Jackson 
 lies buried, and where his statue looks out from a 
 terrace over the open country. We also visit the 
 very beautiful campus of the Washington and 
 Lee University, and the hilltop situation of the 
 famous Virginia Military Institute, where another 
 statue of Jackson stands in commanding position. 
 Were there time, one could linger for hours on the 
 University campus and in the old Lexington cem- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 225 
 
 etery. I find a very interesting inscription on a 
 simple stone, which reads thus: 
 
 Samuel Hays. In loving remembrance 
 for faithful service ; this stone is erected by 
 the desire of his master. He was loved, 
 honomred, and trusted, by three genera- 
 tions. 
 
 The buildings of Washington and Lee Univer- 
 sity are of classic type, and the whole campus with 
 its fine trees and its many white porticoes gleam- 
 ing through them, makes an impression that is best 
 expressed by the old phrase, “classic shades.” Some 
 of our more modern universities impress one by 
 their very architecture and atmosphere as being 
 magnificently equipped institutions of business. 
 Washington and Lee University has the old atmos- 
 phere of study and of the quiet, ordered life of the 
 scholar. The Virginia Military Institute is par- 
 ticularly interesting to the traveler, because of the 
 vault in its chapel crypt where rest the ashes of the 
 Lee family. Here are buried Lighthorse Harry 
 Lee, and his distinguished son General Robert E. 
 Lee. And here there is a beautiful recmnbent 
 
226 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 statue of General Lee by Valentine; so realistic 
 that the dead man seems to lie before one wrapped 
 in marble sleep. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 227 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 We are sorry to leave the hospitable “Shenan- 
 doah” when the time comes to go on to Charlottes- 
 ville. We drive from Staunton out past the Na- 
 tional Cemetery which stands on a hill overlooking 
 the valley. We are soon to cross the ridge between 
 the Shenandoah Valley and the other great valley 
 known as Piedmont, the crossing point being at 
 Rock Fish Gap. This is the historic point where 
 the early settlers first saw and laid claim to the 
 Shenandoah Valley in the name of the King of 
 England. 
 
 The view from the top of the Gap, which is 
 reached by a very easy climb, is strikingly beauti- 
 ful. On one side is the Shenandoah Valley from 
 which we have just come up, stretching far into the 
 distance. On the other are the fertile rolling hills, 
 
228 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 and the miles of green orchards, of the Piedmont 
 section. Here is a view which shows us the smiling, 
 fruitful Virginia of which we have dreamed. We 
 descend from the Gap by a very fine new road, and 
 shortly after we cross a bridge which is in the last 
 stages, so far as traffic is concerned, of tottering 
 decay. At each end of the old wooden structure 
 there is a card posted by the county commissioners 
 to the effect that they will not be responsible for 
 the safety of travelers crossing the bridge. It 
 strikes one as rather incongruous that they shouW 
 warn people against using the bridge, save on their 
 own responsibility, and yet offer no alternative. 
 Just beyond Yancey Mills we pass an old, old farm- 
 house at whose gate there hangs an attractive sign, 
 “THE SIGN OF THE GREEN TEA-POT.” 
 We decide to go in for a cup of tea. It is a charm- 
 ing little place, kept by a woman of taste and 
 arranged for parties to sup in passing by, or for a 
 few people to make a short stay. We admire the 
 simple, dainty furniture, the home-like little par- 
 lor, and the attractive dining-room. Everything is 
 beautifully clean and we sigh that we cannot make 
 a longer stay. They give us one of the best cups of 
 tea that we have had in all our long journey. The 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 229 
 
 views about the place are charmingly pastoral, and 
 we feel that with books and walks we could spend 
 an idyllic fortnight here. Coming into Charlottes- 
 ville we pass the fine campus of the University of 
 Virginia. 
 
 Now comes a delightful week in old Charlottes- 
 ville. To begin with, we insme our comfort by 
 staying at a private boarding house on Jefferson 
 street, where we have the delicious cooking that 
 makes the tables of the old State famous. We find 
 the boarding houses in Virginia to be very pleasant 
 places indeed. We enjoy our Virginia table neigh- 
 bors and we enjoy the homely comfort of these 
 establishments. When we do not know the address 
 of a boarding house we are accustomed, upon enter- 
 ing a town, to make inquiry at the best looking 
 drug store. We have found this plan admirable, 
 and are indebted for some very kindly and prac- 
 tical advice. 
 
 While in Charlottesville we drive about the coun- 
 try over the red clay roads which are so beautiful 
 in the midst of the green meadows and orchards. 
 This is the scenery that is so charmingly described 
 by Mary Johnston in “Lewis Rand.” Charlottes- 
 yille is in the midst of a famous apple coimtry. 
 
230 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 where are grown most delicious wine saps. All 
 along in our Virginia travels we have seen evidences 
 ot a bumper crop of apples. Never have I seen so 
 many apple trees bowed to the ground with their 
 rosy crop. Each tree is a bouquet in itself ; and a 
 whole orchard of these trees with their drooping 
 sprays of apple-laden branches, many of them 
 propped from the ground, is a charming sight. I 
 wish for the brush of a painter to transfer all this 
 color and form to an immortal canvas. 
 
 On a hill near Charlottesville we have a never- 
 to-be-forgotten view. Across a little valley on an- 
 other hilltop is Thomas Jefferson’s “Monticello,” 
 or Little Mountain. Just in front lies the town of 
 Charlottesville upon its many knolls. And on be- 
 yond, rank on rank, stretch 150 miles of the Blue 
 Mountains. The hill on which we stand has a bald 
 top and just below this is a fringe of beautiful 
 young apple and peach orchards. The trees do well 
 on these hills. Lower down is the Pantopps or- 
 chard, which once belonged to the Jefferson estate. 
 
 One day we drive, by virtue of an introduction, 
 to “Edgehill,” a fine old estate where lived Martha 
 Jefferson Randolph, Thomas Jefferson’s daughter. 
 We are only a short distance here from “Castle 
 
1. Conococheague Creek Bridge, Md. 2. “Edgehill,’^ near Charlottes- 
 ville, Va. Old Home of Martha Jefferson Randolph. 3. “At 
 the Sign of the Green Teapot,” near Yancey Mills, Va. 
 
library 
 OF THE 
 
 university of ILLINOIS 
 
 I 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 231 
 
 Hill,” the old home of the Rives family and the 
 present residence of the Princess Troubetskoy. 
 Another day we drive, by a stiff hill road winding 
 through the estate, to “Monticello.” The trees on 
 the lawn of “Monticello” are our special delight, 
 as are the views from the hilltop plateau on which 
 the house stands. From here Jefferson could see in 
 the distant trees the tops of the buildings of the 
 beloved University which he had founded. No 
 wonder that it is on record that Thomas Jefferson 
 spent 796 days in all at “Monticello” during his 
 two terms as President! In a family cemetery on 
 the hillside, not so very far from the hilltop lawn, 
 rest the mortal remains of Thomas Jefferson. He 
 sleeps with the members of his family about him, 
 and on the plain shaft of Virginia granite are these 
 words, which were written by Jefferson himself and 
 were found among his papers : 
 
 “Here was Buried 
 Thomas Jefferson, 
 
 Author of the Declaration of American 
 Independence, 
 
 Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious 
 Freedom, 
 
 And Father of the University of Virginia.” 
 
232 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 We spend some time at the University of Vir- 
 ginia, wandering about the campus, and admiring 
 the old buildings of classic architecture. Every 
 visitor should stand upon the terrace of the 
 library, which commands a beautiful view of the 
 quadrangle, flanked by long lines of professors’ 
 houses with classic white porticoes and enclosed at 
 its further end by a hall of assembly. On the lawn 
 of the quadrangle stands a statue of Homer. The 
 bard is represented as sitting with his lyre in his 
 hands while at his feet is a youth in the position of 
 a rapt listener and learner. 
 
 As we wish to see as much of Virginia as possi- 
 ble we drive from Charlottesville to Culpeper, re- 
 turning from Culpeper to Richmond. In leaving 
 Charlottesville we drive past Keswick, a little set- 
 tlement around which the country has been taken 
 by many beautiful estates. Our route runs by Gor- 
 donsville and Orange through Madison Mills to 
 Culpeper. Not far from Keswick we pass a sign 
 at an attractive farm gate, which reads, “Clover- 
 fields. Meals for tomrists. Golf.” We are sorry 
 to be unable to test the hospitality of Cloverfields. 
 
 Although our road is more or less indifferent, we 
 are passing through beautiful country. Around 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 233 
 
 Keswick the fields are beautifully kept, and the en- 
 trances to estates are marked by ivy-covered posts 
 of yellow stone, rough hewn. Some of the houses 
 are red brick with white pillars, others are of stucco. 
 There are plenty of turkeys and chickens, and 
 hounds, as everywhere else in Virginia. We begin 
 to see clumps of pine trees from time to time. The 
 oak trees of the forest are very large, many of them 
 of noble height. The juniper trees are in blossom, 
 their blue-green berries making them look as if they 
 wore an exquisite blue-green veil. In Virginia, one 
 is everywhere impressed by the richness and luxur- 
 iance of the foliage. All along the roadside banks 
 are clumps of hazel bushes, heavy with clusters of 
 nuts in their furry green coats. The chestnut trees 
 are full of fruit. About a mile north of Gordons- 
 ville we pass a plain shaft of light pinkish-grey 
 granite on the roadside bank at the left. The name 
 Waddel is on the shaft and the following inscrip- 
 tion: 
 
 Near this spot while yet primeval forest 
 stood the church of the blind preacher 
 James Waddel. 
 
 A devout man of God and a faithful 
 minister of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
234 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 Born 1739— died 1805. 
 
 Socrates died like a philosopher, but 
 Jesus Christ like a God. 
 
 From his sermon as narrated by Wil- 
 liam Wirt. 
 
 This country has just the charm that I should 
 expect it to have from my reading about Virginia. 
 Here are late-blooming honeysuckles in the hedges. 
 Here are men drawing wagon loads of produce 
 along the rather heavy clay highways to market. 
 Sometimes they drive two horses tandem. The rear 
 horse is saddled, and the driver rides him and so 
 guides the team. Sometimes a heavy wagon is 
 drawn by four horses, the driver astride the near 
 horse in the rear. Sometimes we see farmers 
 ploughing with three horses or mules, flocks of tur- 
 keys or chickens following in the wake of the plough 
 and picking up the luscious morsels thrown up by 
 the ploughshare. Sometimes we see fine Hereford 
 cattle grazing in the fields. Then come the reddest 
 of red pigs feeding contentedly in big fields of al- 
 falfa. Once we pass a farmhouse with late-bloom- 
 ing yellow roses climbing over the stone posts at 
 the farm entrance. Once we see a man ploughing 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 235 
 
 in the fields with a mare, her mule baby running 
 by her side as she plods along. Near Madison 
 Mills we cross the Rapidan river, a rushing, yellow 
 stream. As we near Culpeper the wooded coun- 
 try opens out into a beautiful grazing region, the 
 land rising and falling in long undulations. Here 
 and there in the great fields are clumps of trees giv- 
 ing a park-like effect to the country. All this is 
 very beautiful, and one’s joy would be undimmed 
 were it not for the traces of the great conflict of 
 fifty years ago. We are coming now to the region 
 of Cedar Mountain which is locally known as 
 Slaughter Mountain. Here is the site of a bloody 
 battle. The Confederates were intrenched in a po- 
 sition of vantage on Cedar Mountain and the Un- 
 ionists were advancing across the fields and through 
 the forest into a sort of basin below the mountain. 
 It is quite easy to understand the heavy slaughter 
 of the Union troops ; for on both sides of the road, 
 here and there in the fields, are stones marking the 
 spots where certain officers and certain groups of 
 men fell. Here is a stone near the road marking 
 the spot where Colonel Winder of the 72nd Penn- 
 sylvania fell as he was advancing. 
 
 As we see these stones the present peace and 
 
236 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 prosperity of these rolling grass lands is emphasized 
 by the bloody background of the past. 
 
 We stay in Culpeper at the old railway hotel, 
 “The Waverly.” In the morning we drive about 
 the rich country and are decided in our own minds 
 that if we wished to come to Virginia for a great 
 grazing establishment, this is the part of the coun- 
 try to which we should turn. We hear tales of one 
 farm where the owner has made seven cuttings of 
 alfalfa in the course of one year. 
 
 We make a hurried trip to the National Ceme- 
 tery at Culpeper. 12,000 Union soldiers sleep in 
 this cemetery; and Maine, Massachusetts, New 
 York, Ohio and Pennsylvania all have monuments 
 to their dead. The granite pillar of Pennsylvania, 
 with its bronze tablets, keystone shaped, is particu- 
 larly fine. The noble inscription begins: “Penn- 
 sylvania remembers with solemn pride her heroic 
 dead who here repose in known and unknown 
 graves.” 
 
 In leaving Culpeper we retrace our path as far 
 as Gordonsville, and there turn toward Mechanics- 
 ville, on our way to Richmond. Again we come 
 through alternations of open, rolling, exquisitely 
 pastoral country and lush forest. Between Cul- 
 
by; the LINCOLN HIGHWAY^ 237 
 
 peper and Madison Mills we notice particularly a 
 little old red brick church set in the forest trees by 
 the roadside. A tablet on the building tells us that 
 this is “Crooked Run Baptist Church. Organized 
 1777, rebuilt 1910.” Crooked Run, a swift, clay- 
 red creek, hurries along through the forest near the 
 church. 
 
 One thing that interests us in Virginia is the fre- 
 quency of family cemeteries, quiet plots near the old 
 farmhouses and mansions. Sometimes they are sur- 
 rounded by low brick walls, over which the honey- 
 suckle climbs. Sometimes they are open plots on a 
 knoll in some field near the house. After we pass 
 Gordonsville the fine road changes to a compara- 
 tively poor one and the open country with its park- 
 like appearance gives way to long stretches of rich 
 forest. There are many fine oaks and clumps of 
 green pines. After passing Louisa we are more 
 than ever in what seems to be back country, lonely 
 and apparently sparsely settled. We drive over 
 long stretches of old corduroy road, the planks now 
 much rotted. Here and there is a comfortable look- 
 ing negro cabin, and here and there a negro is clear- 
 ing land. The soil looks very rich and fertile after 
 it has been opened to the sun. At a somewhat 
 
238 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 lonely point we come upon three little negro boys 
 and tell them that we wish to take their pictures. 
 I stand them in a row while T. gets his camera, as- 
 suring them that each boy is to have two pennies 
 for standing quietly. They are somewhat awed by 
 the occasion; and when T. produces a tripod and 
 begins to pull out its long legs preparatory to get- 
 ting a high stand for the camera, they are terrified. 
 The face of the oldest one melts into tears, but we 
 reassure him and the picture promises to be a suc- 
 cess. We tell the proud mother of the oldest boy 
 that we will surely send her a picture and we are 
 glad to keep our promise later. 
 
 Farther on we pass some forlorn looking negroes 
 in a field, clearing the land. By the roadside sits 
 the baby, a round little pickaninny in a rustic baby 
 carriage made of a soap box on wooden wheels. 
 We stop the car and ask if we may take the baby’s 
 picture. The older man looks very troubled and 
 says, “I’m afraid not. You see I ain’t got any 
 money. I just got this heah land.” We assure 
 him that we don’t want any money and will be 
 only too happy to send some pictures of the baby 
 if our photograph turns out well. But he is still 
 dubious and troubled, and the baby’s brother says. 
 
Three Young Virginians. 2. An Old Homestead on Tidewater, Va. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOl 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 239 
 
 “The baby’s mother ain’t heah; we dursent do it 
 when she ain’t heah.” Evidently they think that 
 we mean to involve them in some financial obliga- 
 tion or to cast some sort of spell over little black 
 baby, contentedly sucking her thumb. I don’t like 
 to be beaten, but we cannot stay to convince them 
 that they are mistaken, so we say “Good-bye,” and 
 drive away. From time to time we pass patches of 
 tobacco, very green and thrifty looking; but there 
 is much uncleared land and there are long stretches 
 of lonely country. 
 
 We reach Richmond at six o’clock and are so for- 
 tunate as to have the address of a charming board- 
 ing house on Franklin Street. Richmond has 
 some excellent hotels ; and she also has some 
 very attractive pensions. “Where do you come 
 from?” asks our hospitable hostess, as she shows us 
 to our big, comfortable room. “From California,” 
 I respond, and create quite a sensation. 
 
 Richmond is worthy of a longer stay than we can 
 possibly make this time. But we drive for a morn- 
 ing and enjoy all that we can of the old city. We 
 go up to Monument Hill and have the fine view 
 from there, looking down on the winding James 
 and on the green fields of Chesterfield County and 
 
240 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 Manchester beyond. We drive out to the National 
 Cemetery where 6573 Union soldiers sleep, 5678 of 
 them unknown. We go to Church Hill and see old 
 St. John’s Church, where Patrick Henry’s pew in 
 which he made his famous speech is marked with a 
 brass plate and an inscription. We drive to the 
 other end of the city and see the new part of Rich- 
 mond with its wide streets and fine equestrian sta- 
 tues of General Lee and General Stuart. The old 
 houses of the town, built of red brick and adorned 
 with white porches, with pink crape myrtle bloom- 
 ing luxuriantly in their door yards, are particularly 
 attractive to us. 
 
 But we must leave the old city and drive on fifty 
 miles to Williamsburg. The road is sandy and 
 somewhat muddy in shady spots, under the heavy 
 forest foliage. Nine miles out from Richmond we 
 pass through the village of Seven Pines, the region 
 of the bloody battle of Seven Pines. All about are 
 extensive forests of pine; and on the left, after we 
 pass through the village, is a National Cemetery 
 surrounded by a brick wall, just as are those of 
 Richmond and Culpeper. This is a smaller ceme- 
 tery, but there are rows and rows of little white 
 headstones, marking the graves of the fallen. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 241 
 
 We drive for miles through the forest, the fine 
 trees growing close to the road. There is a special 
 fascination in driving through open forest. Here 
 are willow oaks, live oaks, and green, green pines. 
 Here is a heavy undergrowth of young dogwoods. 
 And here by the roadside are persimmon trees, 
 loaded with fruit. Wherever the land is cleared it 
 is rich and fertile. As we come nearer to the sea 
 the forest growth is heavier. Here and there are 
 negroes working in neat little clearings or sitting on 
 the whitewashed wooden porches of their tiny 
 cabins. 
 
 We are in water-melon country and great wagon- 
 loads of the fruit are being taken to the nearest 
 station for export. All along the road we see the 
 pink and green fragments of discarded fruit. Peo- 
 ple eat water-melons at this season as we eat 
 oranges in the North. We can see the remains 
 of many an open air banquet, by the roadside. We 
 stop by one wagon-load and I ask a boy who is driv- 
 ing what a water-melon will cost. “Oh! fifteen 
 cents.” “We don’t want such a big one,” say I. 
 “Can’t you sell us a smaller one for ten cents?” “I 
 reckon so.” And he picks out a huge watermelon, 
 and passes it over. As we drive along we cut out 
 
242 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 cubic pieces of the pink delicacy. Never have we 
 tasted such a water-melon. It has not been wilted 
 by a long, hot train journey, but has just come 
 from the field, and is fresh and delicious. 
 
 At Williamsburg we stay at the Colonial Inn, a 
 most pleasant hostel, on old Duke of Gloucester 
 Street. Williamsburg, known then as Middle 
 Plantation, was the settlement to which the James- 
 town settlers moved when they found Jamestown 
 Island too damp and malarial for permanent occu- 
 pancy. It is one of the most interesting Colonial 
 towns in the United States. In Williamsburg I 
 realize that many of our Virginia forefathers were 
 Englishmen of the aristocratic class. The coats-of- 
 arms on the old stones in the cemetery; the quiet 
 elegance of the old parish church with its hand- 
 somely draped governor’s pew — all the marks of 
 early days’ ceremonial are here. A service in Bru- 
 ton Parish Church is an experience, and it is also 
 an experience to see the communion plate of solid 
 silver and the old prayer-book used in Colonial 
 days. One can see for one’s self the pages in the 
 prayer-book where “King of kings” has been scored 
 out and “Ruler of the universe” has been written in 
 on the margin. In this prayer-book the prayer for 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 243 
 
 the king has been pasted over, a prayer for the pres- 
 ident having been written on the paper covering the 
 printed prayer. The parish register of the chuj ch 
 has many interesting and amusing entries. In one 
 entry twin slaves have been registered by their 
 master as “Adam” and “Eve.” 
 
 Miss Estelle Smith, a lady who lives in a most 
 interesting old house on Palace Green, knows the 
 history of Williamsburg thoroughly, and is a very 
 charming guide. Miss Smith’s house, where a few 
 paying guests find gracious hospitality, is known 
 as “Audrey House.” It was this house that Mary 
 Johnston used as the setting for her heroine, Aud- 
 rey. On one window-pane of the “Audrey House” 
 an unknown hand traced with a diamond long, long 
 ago these words: “Nov. 23rd, 1796. O fatal day.” 
 On another pane there is a name and the date 1734. 
 Miss Smith says that no member of her family 
 knows what the' fatal day was, away back in 1796. 
 No tradition or record of that unhappiness has de- 
 scended. 
 
 In Bruton church yard, I am interested to read 
 on a family gravestone a special inscription to 
 “Mammy Sarah, devoted servant of the family who 
 died aged sixty years.” 
 
244 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 The gallery of the old church is known as “Lord 
 Dunsmore’s Gallery.” Lord Dunsmore retired 
 here from the seats of the Burgesses on the floor 
 below, shortly before the Revolution, not being in 
 sympathy with their revolutionary attitude. Later 
 the gallery was assigned to the students of William 
 and Mary College, and its old railing is covered 
 with their initials, cut deep into the wood. 
 
 One can read fine old names, and very great 
 names, on the brass tablets which adorn many of 
 the pews and many wall spaces in Bruton church. 
 George Washington, Peyton Randolph, Patrick 
 Henry, and many others. As we read them we 
 feel that we are in a distinguished and patriotic 
 company, silent and yet present. 
 
 It is pleasant to wander about the old streets of 
 the village, shaded by gnarled mulberry trees and 
 fine elms. Masses of pink crape myrtle embower 
 some of the old houses, and waxen leaved magnolia 
 trees shade the door yards. At one end of the vil- 
 lage there is an interesting stone to mark the site 
 of the old Capitol. We read that “Here Patrick 
 Henry first kindled the flames of revolution by his 
 resolutions and speech against the Stamp Act, May 
 29-30, 1765.” “Here June 12, 1776, was adopted 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 245 
 
 by the convention the immortal work of George 
 Mason, the Declaration of Rights and on June 29, 
 1776 the first written Constitution of a free and 
 independent State ever framed.” 
 
 We drive out past the shaded campus of William 
 and Mary College and over eight miles of sandy 
 road through the forest, to Jamestown Island. We 
 cross a rickety rustic bridge over the saltwater 
 stream which separates the island from the main- 
 land. Driving across grassy fields we come to the 
 present church, incorporating the old tower and 
 surrounding with its brick walls the precious foun- 
 dations of the early church. The present church is 
 really a protection for these low, broken founda- 
 tions which are railed off from the possible vandal- 
 ism of tourists; and the repository of certain old 
 tombs and of an ever increasing number of memo- 
 rial tablets upon its brick walls. One tablet which 
 pleases me much, reads: 
 
 In honour of Chanco 
 The Christian Indian boy 
 whose warnings saved 
 The Colony of Virginia from destruction 
 In the Massacre of 22 March, 1622. 
 
246 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 Erected by the Society of Colonial 
 Dames of America in the State of Virginia. 
 
 Another interesting tablet reads: 
 
 To the glory of God 
 And in grateful remembrance of 
 The adventurers in England 
 and 
 
 Ancient Planters of Virginia 
 
 Who through evil report and loss of fortune 
 Through suffering and death 
 Maintained stout hearts 
 And laid the foundations of our country. 
 
 A fine statue of Captain John Smith stands on 
 the greensward, near the church, looking out over 
 the broad waters of the James. The Captain is 
 represented in the dress of his day, his wide trous- 
 ers tied with ribbons at the knee, his broad boot 
 tops falling over in picturesque fashion. On the 
 monument is a simple inscription, “Captain John 
 Smith, governor of Virginia, 1608.” A graceful 
 statue of Pocahontas is to stand near that of Cap- 
 tain Smith, facing the water. 
 
 Not far from the church and in an open posi- 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 247 
 tion stands the tall, fine granite shaft which com- 
 memorates the first settlement. Its main inscrip- 
 tion reads: 
 
 Jamestown 
 
 The first permanent colony 
 of the English people 
 The birthplace of Virginia 
 And of the United States 
 May 13, 1607. 
 
 Jamestown Island contains 1600 acres, and is 
 some three miles long. It is owned by Mrs. Bar- 
 ney, who lives upon it and who conducts a farm 
 on part of its acres. She and her husband gen- 
 erously gave the portion of the island containing 
 the church yard to the Society for the Preserva- 
 tion of the Antiquities of Virginia. It is less than 
 fifteen years since the restoration and care of the 
 old Jamestown settlement site has been under- 
 taken. Before that the graveyard was neglected 
 and overgrown, the foundations of the old church 
 were falling to pieces, and the whole place was 
 utterly forlorn and forsaken. 
 
 From Williamsbm*g we drive on to Yorktown, 
 now a small village. One short street, a few old 
 
248 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 houses, a shop and a little inn or two are all that 
 remain of Yorktown. No railroad reaches it, and 
 it is therefore rather inaccessible to tourists. The 
 village is most nobly situated on a high bluff over- 
 looking the broad waters of the York River, which 
 stretch away hke a great bay. The Yorktown mon- 
 ument, quite as fine and imposing a shaft as the 
 Jamestown one, stands high on the river bank in a 
 striking and dramatic situation. We hear a pretty 
 story of how the President of the United States 
 came down with a party of gentlemen some months 
 ago and walked about the village. No one recog- 
 nized him save a young girl of fourteen who volun- 
 teered her services as a guide, took the party about 
 and explained to them the points of interest. They 
 remained with her nearly two hours. At the end 
 of this time when they were bidding her farewell, 
 she said, nodding to the President, “You are Pres- 
 ident Wilson, are you not?” We drive out from 
 the village to an old farmhouse known as the 
 “Moore House,” where terms of capitulation were 
 drawn up after the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. 
 We go into the room where the terms were made, 
 and feel that we are really in the birthplace of our 
 great nation. 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 249 
 
 From Yorktown we cross by ferry to Glouces- 
 ter County, for we purpose to see something of the 
 famous section known as Tidewater Virginia. As 
 Tidewater on Chesapeake Bay is a region where 
 creeks and inlets make a thousand indentations in 
 the coast, the ideal way to see it all would be by 
 motor boat. But our purpose is to drive along the 
 sandy roads and through the forests of Gloucester 
 County for some thirty miles, until we reach the 
 region of Mob jack Bay. As we drive along we 
 pass many negroes, respectable looking people in 
 comfortable buggies and light open wagons. Some 
 are driving mules, and others have very good horses. 
 We find that we must drive slowly, as many of the 
 animals are afraid of our car. We pass old Abing- 
 don Parish Church, and stop to read the names on 
 the tombs with the coats-of-arms in the church yard. 
 A little farther on we turn down a long lane and 
 drive for a mile and a half through fields and trees. 
 Then we come through a gate on to the green lawn 
 of “Newstead,” an old estate where they are good 
 enough to take a few paying guests. Sheep and 
 turkeys walk calmly about on the grass under the 
 shade of noble oak trees. Before us are the blue 
 waters of the Bay. We are on that particular arm 
 
250 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 of Mobjack Bay known as the North River. Here 
 is the enchanting region of which Thomas Dixon 
 Jr., wrote some twelve years ago when he described 
 his own home in a book called “The Life Worth 
 Living.” A long motor boat ride convinces us that 
 Mr. Dixon’s descriptions are not exaggerated. 
 All along the river (which is really an arm of Ches- 
 apeake Bay) stand pleasant homes surrounded by 
 green lawns and shaded by fine trees. It is so shel- 
 tered here that one has the advantages of the real 
 country, as well as of the real sea. 
 
 The chestnut oak, the magnolia, the willow oak, 
 the crape myrtle, the fig and the grape all flourish 
 luxuriantly. The grass is thick and green ; and yet 
 sail boats and motor boats ride at anchor at private 
 piers and your man can dredge your own oysters 
 from your own oyster-bed just in front of your 
 grass and flowers. The estate of which Mr. Dixon 
 wrote so delightfully is only ten minutes by motor 
 boat from “Newstead.” 
 
 A mild climate, rich vegetation, fertile soil, birds 
 and flowers and fruits, the best eating in the world, 
 what more does Virginia need to make her a para- 
 dise on land and by sea? Only good roads, and 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 251 
 
 then the motorist will enjoy her rare charms as 
 they have never yet been enjoyed. 
 
 We retrace our journey through the thick woods, 
 past fine oaks and beeches to the Yorktown ferry. 
 Crossing again to Yorktown we drive on to Old 
 Point Comfort, taking a little time to visit the ex- 
 tensive buildings of the famous Hampton Institute. 
 At Old Point Comfort we take the boat for Cape 
 Charles City. It is our plan to drive straight up 
 the Maryland Peninsula, having first spent the 
 night in a comfortable little hotel at Cape Charles 
 City. 
 
 It is a lovely September morning, clear and 
 bright, as we drive north along bumpy roads, 
 through beautiful forests of pine and oak. We are 
 in Accomac County, Virginia, on the southern end 
 of what is called the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia 
 Peninsula. This seems to be a lonely coimtry 
 through which we are driving, somewhat sparsely 
 settled. And yet between Cape Charles City and 
 Pocomoke City there are twenty-seven prosperous 
 banks, they tell us. And here in Accomac County 
 is harvested five per cent, of the entire sweet potato 
 crop of the United States. The climatic condi- 
 
252 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 tions for fruits and vegetables are almost perfect 
 on this peninsula, and the soil is extremely fertile. 
 All this country is destined to he an immense pe- 
 ninsula garden. As we drive along we see great 
 heaps of yellow sweet potatoes waiting to be packed 
 away in barrels. We see long rows of baskets filled 
 with scarlet tomatoes, stretching down the fields, 
 alongside the denuded tomato plants. What glo- 
 rious color it is! I should like to come here and 
 paint a tomato field just after the fruit has been 
 picked, the whole field marked by lines of color. 
 First a row of green tomato plants, somewhat grey 
 and dusty in the bright sun; then a row of baskets 
 of scarlet fruit glowing in the sunshine; then a 
 stretch of brown earth. Then another row of the 
 grey-green plants and another row of baskets piled 
 high with scarlet fruit; and so on across many acres 
 of browns and greens and scarlets. We pass im- 
 mense wagon-loads of tomatoes being hauled to the 
 canneries and to the station. The fruit is placed 
 in the wagon in double decker fashion; the first 
 platform of baskets being surmounted by a second 
 platform upon which the second rows of baskets 
 rest. The wagons are drawn by sturdy mules, 
 sometimes four strong. At Pocomoke City we have 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 253 
 
 an excellent luncheon at the little hotel. We have 
 crossed the Maryland boundary, and our route is 
 to lead us through Princess Ann and Salisbury off 
 to the northeast to Easton. The country is less 
 heavily wooded now, but the soil is of the same fer- 
 tile quality, and the cultivated fields are beautiful 
 to see. We are driving along the famous Eastern 
 Shore, where many people have their country seats. 
 The towns through which we are passing, from 
 Cape Charles City clear along the peninsula, show 
 their age. They belong to the days of early settle- 
 ment. 
 
 At Easton we take a day or two to drive about 
 the open country and see the charming country 
 estates, the houses standing on the shores of creeks 
 and inlets, and having the double charm of the coun- 
 try and the sea, just as they do in Tidewater Vir- 
 ginia. We drive out to “The Wilderness,” the home 
 of a Pittsburg gentleman. One approaches the old 
 brick house through a long avenue of trees. The 
 house faces on a green lawn which slopes to the 
 waters of a broad stream, with glimpses in the dis- 
 tances of a wide bay. About the house there are 
 broad fields with rich, fertile soil capable of high 
 cultivation. Fine roads run all through the coun- 
 
254 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 tryside and there are charming places on the creeks 
 and inlets, each commanding a beautiful water view. 
 You may take your launch in the late afternoon if 
 you are weary, and run about in sheltered water 
 ways commanding fine views of pretty homes set in 
 lovely lawns and trees. Or you may take a sail, 
 venturing out from a small inlet to a wider bay, 
 and so on into the great open water of the Chesa- 
 peake. 
 
 I know a green lawn on a certain inlet, shaded 
 by luxuriant oak trees, where the sound of bells 
 comes across the water from the village spires of an 
 historic old village. The family boat is just be- 
 hind the house, rocking gently on the waters of a 
 little stream, which runs up from the larger stream 
 into the mainland. The situation is ideal. 
 
 We drive about Talbot County and on into Prin- 
 cess Ann County. Everywhere we find the same 
 fertile, level fields, the same water ways with their 
 lovely glimpses of broader water beyond. Where 
 could one wish for a better luncheon than the one 
 served us at an unpretentious little inn called 
 Queen Cottage, in the old village of Queenstown? 
 Delicious oyster soup, the oysters just out of the 
 water, an omelet that would have done justice to a 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 255 
 
 French chef, candied sweet potatoes cooked as only 
 a Southern cook knows how, fresh peas, hot bis- 
 cuits, excellent coffee, and the pink heart of a cool, 
 unwilted watermelon; and all for a most reasonable 
 sum. Queen Cottage would be a sweet spot in 
 which to spend a little time of retreat, bountifully 
 fed and free to wander about quiet streets and fer- 
 tile open country. 
 
 We pass, in driving about, the largest oak tree in 
 the county, standing in the door yard of a country 
 place, and carefully preserved and watched over. 
 Perhaps I should say watched under, as it is an im- 
 mense green tent of huge spreading branches, each 
 one a tree in itself in its girth and diameter. 
 
 From Easton we drive north and northwest to 
 Wilmington over fine roads. The State of Mary- 
 land is improving her roads and will in a few years 
 have highways that will be among the finest in the 
 country, while her scenery is that of a smiling coun- 
 try becoming more and more cultivated. On from 
 Wilmington to Philadelphia and from Philadelphia 
 out to Byrn Mawr ; and from the parked and shaded 
 beauty of Byrn Mawr over the rolling farming 
 country of Pennsylvania with its beautiful culti- 
 vation and its substantial stone farmhouses, up 
 
256 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 through Trenton and Newark and across the ferry 
 to New York. We are once more on the Lincoln 
 Highway as we travel northeast from Philadelphia. 
 It is a joy to travel again by the familiar red, white, 
 and blue signs. We know the pleasant open coun- 
 try of New Jersey through which the noble High- 
 way runs for these last miles, and are at last At 
 Home. 
 
BJ THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 257 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The Lincoln Highway is destined to be a much- 
 traveled road. Already the motorists of the West 
 are turning the hoods of their motor cars to face 
 the East and the motorists of the East are starting 
 Westward. Happy is the man who has his hotel or 
 inn situated on the road marked by the red, white, 
 and blue. The traveler is bound to come his way, 
 and the traveler is bound to alight at his door if 
 only he has something to offer that is worthy of 
 the name of hospitality. But he can no longer 
 afford to be careless. There is an unwritten rule 
 of the open road which reads that the traveler shall 
 tell his fellow traveler of places at which to halt and 
 of places to avoid. It is inevitable that in the course 
 of a short time the slovenly and careless inn-keeper 
 must be supplanted by a better man. 
 
258 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 The tourist does not enjoy looking out of his 
 hotel window on piles of old tin cans and heaps of 
 barrel staves and discarded packing boxes. Nor 
 does he enjoy looking at mounds of ashes, and 
 quantities of vegetable parings. He will not long 
 endure a soiled table cloth, horrible green tea, and 
 indiiferently cooked food. Nor will he endure a 
 lack of hot water and utterly careless sanitary ar- 
 rangements. He may say little about them to the 
 landlord who entertains his party, but he will very 
 soon see to it that better inns take the place of the 
 old ones of careless and indifferent management. 
 The hotel keeper congratulates himself that his 
 open door looks out on the Lincoln Highway, and 
 that his own sign proudly bears the three distin- 
 guishing bars of red, white, and blue. He must have 
 more than this to make his inn a success. It is sur- 
 prising how fast the news of a clean, well kept inn, 
 with excellently cooked food, travels from mouth 
 to mouth. 
 
 In France there is a roll of honour for inn-keep- 
 ers under the direction, if I mistake not, of the 
 Touring Club of France. Only those inn-keepers 
 whose houses and whose tables attain a certain 
 standard, not of style but of simple cleanliness and 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 259 
 
 of wholesome excellence of food, are admitted to 
 this company. I have seen the certificate of the 
 roll of honour hanging on the walls of more than 
 one country inn in France. 
 
 It is to the credit of the many places in which 
 we halted for the night that in only one did we find 
 conditions impossible. We slept in a rather indif- 
 ferent bed-chamber, having reached the inn late. 
 But when we saw the dining-room the following 
 morning, we paid our bill and fled; driving on 
 twenty miles farther for a late breakfast. Surely 
 the average commercial man of the United States 
 who travels in country districts year in and year 
 out must have a charmed digestion and an iron-clad 
 constitution. He may well rejoice that the days 
 of motoring have come, for with the motorist is 
 coming ilot only the broad Highway, but the clean 
 and comfortable inn. Not necessarily the fash- 
 ionable hotel, with its expensive and extravagant 
 accessories ; but the clean, immaculately kept coun- 
 try inn, with its excellent cooking of the abundant 
 food in which our country is so rich. Perhaps we 
 shall need to import some Swiss inn-keeper to tell 
 us how to do it. Whether we do or do not, the man 
 who knows how and the man who is willing to live 
 
260 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 up to his knowledge will inevitably displace the inn- 
 keeper who is careless and indifferent. The big- 
 gest bid for a motor tourist is a clean bed-chamber, 
 a comfortable bed, and a well cooked though simple 
 dinner. 
 
 If I were crossing the Lincoln Highway again I 
 should take with me a spirit lamp, a little sauce pan, 
 some boxes of biscuits, some excellent tea, some co- 
 coa and other supplies. Not that this is a necessity. 
 But it would be very pleasant to have a luncheon 
 or a cup of afternoon tea al fresco, now and then. 
 
 For our own comfort and convenience we laid 
 down for ourselves certain rules of the road. 
 
 First: We did not wear our good clothes. The 
 long, dusty journeys are very hard upon clothing, 
 and for a lady a comfortable light weight tweed 
 suit with plenty of washable blouses with rolling 
 collars, covered by an ample motor coat, gives the 
 greatest comfort and satisfaction. The dust of the 
 plains is ground into one’s clothing and one should 
 be ready for this. The requirements of the hotels 
 along the road are very simple, and a fresh blouse 
 will usually be all that is needed. We took care to 
 use only such dust robes to cover our luggage as 
 could not be injured by the wear and tear of the 
 
BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 261 
 
 journey. We did not take with us our best rugs 
 and robes. 
 
 Second : We did not travel by night. We found 
 it very delightful to travel in the late afternoon, 
 when the lights were particularly fine, but we 
 avoided as much as possible traveling late into the 
 evening. In this way one does not miss the scenery 
 of the country, and one is not over fatigued. We 
 found that when we were obliged to arrive late at 
 om* inn, it was wiser to eat supper at the proper 
 supper hour wherever that might find us. 
 
 Third: We did not as a rule travel on Sunday. 
 Partly because we wished to attend church in what- 
 ever town we might be, partly because we found 
 ourselves fresher for enjoyment and sight-seeing 
 after the rest and quiet of a day. 
 
 Fourth: We resolved at the outset to take the 
 days and the roads as they came; not looking for 
 luxury and well satified with simplicity. It is sur- 
 prising how one is fortified for the vicissitudes of 
 the road by such a deliberate attitude of mind. 
 
 The Lincoln Highway is not as yet a road for 
 those motorists who wish only luxurious hotels, fre- 
 quent stops, and all the cushioned comfort of the 
 much-traveled main roads of the favorite tourist 
 
262 ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 parts of Europe. It is, however, perfectly practi- 
 cable in its entire length of 3200 miles, and rich in 
 interest and charm for those who care for what it 
 has to give. 
 
 We drove a Studebaker car as far as Denver and 
 a Franklin car from Denver to New York. In all 
 the distance traversed we were not conscious of 
 braving any dangers or of taking any particular 
 risks. 
 
 The End. 
 
3v/ 
 
 ' -s 
 
 

'S 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS-URBANA