lon we had before us a very trying 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,
struggling 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 wagons were
piled high with bales and boxes. In some instances the horses of one
team were being unharnessed to be added to another team where the wagon
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
covered 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 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 co