and sleepy,
accustomed jack rabbits made two perfunctory hops as we turned on them
the battery of our exhaust.

We dipped down into a carved bottomland, several miles wide, filled with
minarets, peaks, vermilion towers, and strange striped labyrinths of
many colours above which the sky showed an unbelievable blue. The trunks
of colossal trees lay about in numbers. Apparently they had all been
cross-cut in sections like those sawed for shake bolts, for each was
many times clearly divided. The sections, however, lay all in place; so
the trunks of the trees were as they had fallen. About the ground were
scattered fragments of rock of all sizes, like lava, but of all the
colours of the giddiest parrots. The tiniest piece had at least all the
tints of the spectrum; and the biggest seemed to go the littlest several
better. They looked to me like beautiful jewels. Bill cast at them a
contemptuous glance.

"Every towerist I take in yere makes me stop while he sags down the car
with this junk," he said. Whenever I say "Bill said" or "I said," I
imply that we shrieked, for always through that great, still country we
hustled enveloped in a profanity of explosions, creaks, rattles, and
hums. Just now though, on a level, we travelled at a low gear.
"Petrified wood," Bill added.

I swallowed guiltily the request I was about to proffer.

The malpais defined itself. We came to a wide, dry wash filled with
white sand. Bill brought the little car to a stop.

Well I know that sort of sand! You plunge rashly into it on low gear;
you buzz bravely for possibly fifty feet; you slow down, slow down; your
driving wheels begin to spin--that finishes you. Every revolution digs a
deeper hole. It is useless to apply power. If you are wise you throw out
your clutch the instant she stalls, and thus save digging yourself in
unnecessarily. But if you are really wise you don't get in that fix at
all. The next stage is that wherein you thrust beneath the hind wheels
certain expedients such as robes, coats, and so forth. The wheels, when
set in motion, hurl these trivialities yards to the rear. The car then
settles down with a shrug. About the time the axle is actually resting
on the sand you proceed to serious digging, cutting brush, and laying
causeways. Some sand you can get out of by these methods, but not dry,
stream-bed sand in the Southwest. Finally you reach; the state of true
wisdom. Either you sit peacefully in the tonneau and smoke until s