But now came tribulations. Mr. N. had evidently wrenched his machine in his struggle to free it the night before. He began to have trouble, and traveled more and more haltingly a little way behind us. T. felt a personal responsibility for him and we were continually stopping to wait for him. Finally we halted at the head of a pass before plunging down what turned out to be a long descent. We had just climbed up from a wide valley and could see nothing of our fellow traveler on the slope behind us. T. left the car and went back; and while I waited, looking off at the mountains, two women reached my hilltop, the older one driving the Ford car in which they were traveling. They looked like women of the plains, perfectly able to take care of themselves and to meet emergencies. They had food supplies with them, and two dogs as fellow passengers. The one, a fox terrier, was tied in a box in the tonneau and looked very unhappy. The other, a spaniel, was running back and forth on the rear seat and whining with anxiety to get out. His mistress told me that he was one of the greatest hunters in Nevada, and that he was anxious to go off in the sage brush on a grand chase. Just here the two men came up the hill with Mr. N.'s Ford car, weary and exhausted from going over its machinery and struggling to get it moving. The women warned us that in the valley at the foot of the hill was a very bad mud hole which we must inevitably negotiate. They said that a stream from the mountains had in a recent freshet overflowed the plain and reduced both the road and the adjoining country to the state of a swamp. They assured us that we simply must go through the mud hole and that we were bound to get stuck in it. They cheered us, however, by telling us that a nearby settler had a sturdy draught horse and that he would in all probability pull us out for the sum of $2.00 a motor car. We thanked them for their warning and drove down the long hill into the next valley. I had been interested while waiting for Mr. N.'s machine to come up, to see the beautiful cactus blossoms growing close to the ground on both sides of the road. They were of a rich yellow and a rich magenta color, single petaled and really beautiful. I saw them growing all along through the desert. In some places they made broad patches of color.