Eventually, just before dark, I reached the tiny Mexican village of Pecos, called after the river in the locality. It consisted mainly of a general store and "rooming-house" for the benefit of stranded travellers. A rooming-house, by the way, is a kind of boarding-house but with no accommodation for meals.
At Pecos I was surprised to see an Indian motor-cycle and side-car "parked" on a strip of green, which in generations to come would be the _plaza_ or square. Examination revealed it to be a most remarkable machine. It was equipped with tool-boxes galore at every available place and, strange to remark, there was a small emery wheel mounted skilfully on the top tube and driven by a round belt from a pulley on the engine shaft. There was also a small hand-vice clipped to the frame, and numerous other small tools and fitments, which, to say the least, were not usually found in the equipment of a motor-cycle.
"Well," I said to myself, "if all this paraphernalia is required to get a motor-cycle across to the coast, I'm in for a rough time."
But I was relieved to find that it was the property of a tinsmith who, out for a holiday, combined business with pleasure, and repaired people's tanks and pots and pans wherever he went! In this way he not only defrayed his travelling expenses, but made a far better income than he used to get in his home-town in Ohio.
He was a tall, burly-looking chap, and greeted me with effusion. In like manner did I welcome him. The sight of another motor-cyclist removed my worst apprehensions.
"Strike me pink!" quoth I, "I thought I was the only madman in this part of the world!"
"Gee, brother, put it right there. I wuz beginnin' to think I'd never see another motorsickle agin; you goin' to the coast?"
"That's where I'm heading for, but of late I'm not so sure about getting there as I was when I left New York."
"Oh, boy, yew'll git there all right if yew've come this far--I said it; but say, there's some smart bits o' travellin' to do ahead on yer!"
"What? Is it worse than what I've passed?"
"Waal, I've bin there an' got back--travellin' with the missus here--an' I tell you, the road gets better the further east I come. And what's more'n that, brother, yew've got some mighty warm times ahead before you see California--like goin' through Hell, it is. Wait till you find yourself in the middle o' the Mohave Desert with the sun beatin' down at 130 in the shade, and no shade--no nothin' except prickly pears and funny-lookin' cactuses and a bit of sage-bush here and there. Say, boy, wait till you see piles o' bones and carcasses by the score lyin' at the side o' the road, an' yew'll begin to think it's warm, all right. Whatever you do, boy, take water with yer. Yew'll drink GALLONS of it!"