The moment we finished our food we drew up at our destination, and in this wilderness there was a telegraph station and a few shanties, but it could all be lit by electric light!  The most strong, paintless, hardy looking automobiles were awaiting us, into which we climbed, a very close pack.  The maids and valets had all been left behind at Osages—­think of asking Agnes to really rough it, even if there had been room!  So we had all to attend to the luggage, and were only allowed a teeny hand bag each, with a nighty and comb and brush in it.  Our hair and faces were already grey with dust, and all sense of appearance had been forgotten.

I sat between Lola and Nelson, with the little Vinerhorn and the secretary in front of us, while the Senator was next our chauffeur, whom they addressed as “Bob”—­a friend, not an employe.  The rest of the party squashed into the other motors and so we started, ours leading over a track, not a road; the sage brush had been removed, that was all, and there were deep ruts to guide us.  We flew along with a brilliant blue sky overhead, high hills which presently grew mountainous on either side, and what seemed an endless sea of greenish drab scrub before.  Once or twice we passed tired, weary-looking men plodding on foot, and I did wish we could have picked them up and helped them along; but there was not an inch of room.  The ruts were so extremely deep that I certainly should have been pitched out but that Nelson held me tight.  Mr. Vinerhorn frowned so when he held Lola, too, that he was obliged to leave her alone, and I am sure she must have had a most uncomfortable journey.  I suppose this little Randolph has picked up that selfish jealous trait in England with his clothes, only thinking of his emotions, not his wife’s comfort, quite unlike kind Americans.  After about an hour we began to go up the steepest hills on the winding track, and got among pine trees and great boulders, up and up until the air grew quite chill; and then as we turned a sharp corner the most unique scene met our view.  I told you before I can’t describe scenery, Mamma, but I must try this, because it was so wonderful, and reminded me of the pictures in Paradise Lost illustrated by Dore, when the Devil looks down on that weird world.

A grey-sand, flat place far below us, about fifty miles across, surrounded by mountains turning blue in their shadows in the afternoon light—­it might have been a supremely vast Circus Maximus or giants’ race course, and there was the giant towering above the rest, with a snow cap on his head, peeping from between the lower mountains.  It seemed it could not be possible we could descend to there, but we did, the track getting more primitive as we went on, and once on the edge of a precipice we met a waggon and team of eight mules driven by a Mexican with a cracking whip, and getting past might have tried your nerves, but no one notices such things in a country of this sort!