We have seen the bread and the cornbread of a nation growing on the rolling prairies of Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. We have crossed the green, pastoral stretches of Indiana and Ohio and Pennsylvania. The red roads of Virginia, winding among her laden orchards of apples and peaches and pears and her lush forests of oak and pine; the yellow roads of Maryland, passing through her fertile fields and winding in and out among the thousand water ways of her coast line, all come before us. These are precious possessions of experience and memory, the choice, intimate knowledge to which the motorist alone can attain. The Friends of the Open Road are ours; the homesteader in his white canopied prairie schooner, the cattleman on his pony, the passing fellow motorist, the ranchman at his farmhouse door, the country inn-keeper hospitably speeding us on our way. We have a new conception of our great country; her vastness, her varied scenery, her prosperity, her happiness, her boundless resources, her immense possibilities, her kindness and hopefulness. We are bound to her by a thousand new ties of acquaintance, of association, and of pride. The Lincoln Highway is already what it is intended to be, a golden road of pleasure and usefulness, fitly dedicated, and destined to inspire a great patriotism and to honour a great patriot. OCTOBER, 1914. ACROSS THE CONTINENT BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY CHAPTER I With what a strange thrill I look out from my stateroom window, early one April morning, and catch a glimpse of the flashing light on one of the green promontories of the Golden Gate! I dress hurriedly and run out to find that a light is flaming on the other promontory, and that we are entering the great Bay of San Francisco. It has taken a long preparation to give me the feeling of pride and joy and wonder with which I come through the Golden Gate to be in my own country once more. A year of touring in Europe, nearly a year of travel in the Orient, six months in Australia and New Zealand, and after that three months in Honolulu; all this has given me the background for the unique sensation with which I see the two lights on the long green promontories of the Golden Gate stretching out into the Pacific. Our ship moves steadily on, past Alcatraz Island with its long building on its rocky height, making it look like a big Atlantic liner built high amidships. There are the green heights of the Presidio and the suburbs of the city of San Francisco. On the left in the distance is Yerba Buena Island. Far ahead of us, across the width of the Bay, are the distant outlines of Oakland and Berkeley. Later I am to stand on the hilly campus of the University of California and look straight across the Bay through the Golden Gate which we have just entered. The tall buildings of San Francisco begin to arise and we are landed in the streets of the new city. What a marvel it is! In the ten days that we were there I must say that still the wonder grew that a