driving thereon; it requires no little restraint to plough miles and miles through bottomless mud on a narrow road in the Mohawk valley with a superb three-foot cinder path against your very wheels. The machine of its own accord will climb up now and then; it requires all the vigilance of a law-abiding driver to keep it in the mud, where it is so unwilling to travel.

So far as finding and keeping the road is concerned,—and it is a matter of great concern in this vast country, where roads, cross-roads, forks, and all sorts of snares and delusions abound without sign-boards to point the way,—the following directions may be given once for all:

If the proposed route is covered by any automobile hand-book or any automobile publication, get it, carry it with you and be guided by it; all advice of ancient inhabitants to the contrary notwithstanding.

If there is no publication covering the route, take pains to get from local automobile sources information about the several possible routes to the principal towns which you wish to make.

If you can get no information at all from automobile sources, you can make use—with great caution—of bicycle road maps, of the maps rather than the redlined routes.

About the safest course is to spread out the map and run a straight line between the principal points on the proposed route, note the larger villages, towns, and cities near the line so drawn, make a list of them in the order they come from the starting-point, and simply inquire at each of these points for the best road to the next.

If the list includes places of fair size,—say, from one to ten or twenty thousand inhabitants, it is reasonably certain that the roads connecting such places will be about as good as there are in the vicinity; now and then a better road may be missed, but, in the long run, that does not matter much, and the advantage of keeping quite close to the straight line tells in the way of mileage.

It is usually worse than useless to inquire in any place about the roads beyond a radius of fifteen or twenty miles; plenty of answers to all questions will be forthcoming, but they simply mislead. In these days of railroads, farmers no longer make long overland drives.

It is much easier to get information in small villages than in cities. In a city about all one can learn is how to get out by the shortest cut. Once out, the first farmer will give information about the roads beyond.

In wet weather the last question will be, "Is the road clayey or bottomless anywhere?" In dry weather, "Is there any deep, soft sand, and are there any sand hills?"

The judgment of a man who is looking at the machine while he is giving information is biased by the impressions as to what the machine can do; make allowances for this and get, if possible, an accurate description of the condition of any road which is pronounced impassable, for you alone know what the machine can do, and many a road others think you cannot cover is made with ease.

To the farmer the automobile is a traction engine, and he advises the route accordingly; he will even speculate whether a given bridge will support the extraordinary load.

Once we were directed to go miles out of our way over a series of hills to avoid a stretch of road freshly covered with broken stone, because our solicitous friends were sure the stones would cut the rubber tires.

On the other hand, in Michigan, a well meaning old lady sent us straight against the very worst of sand hills, not a weed, stone, or hard spot on it, so like quicksand that the wheels sank as they revolved; it was the only hill from which we retreated, to find that farmers avoided that particular road on account of that notorious hill, to find also a good, well-travelled road one mile farther around. These instances are mentioned here to show how hazardous it is to accept blindly directions given.

"Is this the road to—?" is the chauffeur's ever recurring shout to people as he whizzes by. Four times out of five he gets a blank stare or an idiotic smile. Now and then he receives a quick "Yes" or "No."

If time permits to stop and discuss the matter at length, do so with a man; if passing quickly, ask a woman.

A woman will reply before a man comprehends what is asked; the feminine mind is so much more alert than the masculine; then, too, a woman would rather know what a man is saying than watch a machine, while a man would rather see the machine than listen;—in many ways the automobile differentiates the sexes.

Of a group of school children, the girls will answer more quickly and accurately than the boys. What they know, they seem to know positively. A boy's wits go wool gathering; he is watching the wheels go round.

At Carlyle, on the way to South Bend, the tire was leaking slightly, the nail had worked out. The road is a fine wide macadam, somewhat rolling as South Bend is approached.

By the road taken South Bend is about one hundred miles from Chicago,—the distance actually covered was some six or eight miles farther, on account of wanderings from the straight and narrow path. The hour was exactly two fifty-three, nearly eight hours out, an average of about twelve and one-half miles an hour, including all stops, and stops count in automobiling; they pull the average down by jumps.

The extra tire was to be at Elkhart, farther on, and the problem was to make the old one hold until that point would be reached. Just as we were about to insert a plug to take the place of the nail, a bicycle repairer suggested rubber bands. A dozen small bands were passed through the little fork made by the broken eye of a large darning-needle, stretched tight over a wooden handle into which the needle had been inserted; some tire cement was injected into the puncture, and the needle carrying the stretched bands deftly thrust clear through; on withdrawing the needle the bands remained, plugging the hole so effectually that it showed no leak until some weeks later, when near Boston, the air began to work slowly through the fabric.

Heavy and clumsy as are the large single-tube tires, it is quite practicable to carry an extra one, though we did not. One is pretty sure to have punctures,—though two in twenty-six hundred miles are not many.

Nearly an hour was spent at South Bend; the river road, following the trolley line, was taken to Elkhart.

Near Osceola a bridge was down for repairs; the stream was quite wide and swift but not very deep. From the broken bridge the bottom seemed to be sand and gravel, and the approaches on each side were not too steep. There was nothing to do but go through or lose many miles in going round. Putting on all power we went through with no difficulty whatsoever, the water at the deepest being about eighteen to twenty inches, somewhat over the hubs. If the bottom of the little stream had been soft and sticky, or filled with boulders, fording would have been out of the question. Before attempting a stream, one must make sure of the bottom; the depth is of less importance.

We did not run into Elkhart, but passed about two miles south in sight of the town, arriving at Goshen at four fifteen. The roads all through here seem to be excellent. From Goshen our route was through Benton and Ligonier, arriving at Kendallville at exactly eight o'clock.

The Professor with painstaking accuracy kept a log of the run, noting every stop and the time lost.

In this first day's run of thirteen hours, the distance covered by route taken was one hundred and seventy miles; deducting all stops, the actual running time was nine hours and twenty minutes, an average of eighteen miles per hour while the machine was