It was now after two o’clock.  We registered 29,328.  I was getting humble minded.  Six o’clock looked good enough to me now.

One thing was greatly encouraging.  As we rose again to the main level of the country I recognized over the horizon a certain humped mountain.  Often in the “good old days” I had approached this mountain from the south.  Beneath its flanks lay my friend’s ranch, our destination.  Five hours earlier in my experience its distance would have appalled me; but my standards had changed.  Nevertheless, it seemed far enough away.  I was getting physically tired.  There is a heap of exercise in many occupations, such as digging sewers and chopping wood and shopping with a woman; but driving in small Arizona motor cars need give none of these occupations any odds.  And of late years I have been accustoming myself to three meals a day.

For this reason there seems no excuse for detailing the next three hours.  From three o’clock until sunset the mirages slowly fade away into the many-tinted veils of evening.  I know that because I’ve seen it; but never would I know it whilst an inmate of a gasoline madhouse.  We carried our own egg-shaped aura constantly with us, on the invisible walls of which the subtle and austere influences of the desert beat in vain.  That aura was composed of speed, bumps, dust, profane noise, and an extreme and exotic busyness.  It might be that in a docile, tame, expensive automobile, garnished with a sane and biddable driver, one might see the desert as it is.  I don’t know whether such a combination exists.  But me—­I couldn’t get into the Officers’ Training Camp because of my advanced years:  I may be an old fogy, but I cherish a sneaking idea that perhaps you have to buy some of these things at the cost of the aforementioned thirst, heat, weariness, and the slow passing of long days.  Still, an Assyrian brick in the British Museum is inscribed by a father to his son away at school with a lament over the passing of the “good old days!”

At any rate, we drew into Spring Creek at five o’clock, shooting at every jump.  My friend’s ranch was only six miles farther.  This was home for Bill, and we were soon surrounded by many acquaintances.  He had letters and packages for many of them; and detailed many items of local news.  To us shortly came a cowboy who had evidently bought all the calico he could carry.  This person was also long and lean and brown; hard bitten; bedecked with worn brown leather chaps, and wearing a gun.  The latter he unbuckled and cast from him with great scorn.

“And I don’t need no gun to do it, neither!” he stated, as though concluding a long conversation.

“Shore not, Slim,” agreed one of the group, promptly annexing the artillery.  “What is it?”

“Kill that ——­ ——­ ——­ Beck,” said Slim, owlishly.  “I can do it; and I can do it with my bare hands, b’ God!”

He walked sturdily enough in the direction of the General Store across the dusty square.  No one paid any further attention to his movements.  The man who had picked up the gun belt buckled it around his own waist.  Bill refilled the ever-thirsty radiator, peered at his gasoline gauge, leisurely turned down a few grease cups.  Ten minutes passed.  We were about ready to start.