Now I was faced with still another problem, would the machine ever run again? I doubted it, not for days anyway. But it was a long way to anywhere from this place. If the motor wouldn't run, I would really be in trouble. It would be too hard to push in the mud. I had nothing to eat, there was not a house in sight, and there was certainly no place to spread a blanket to sleep through the night. So I had to try something, but what? While I was trying to find the answer to that question, I got straddle of the little Scout to sit and rest and think. Then, mostly through force of habit, and with no faith nor hope whatsoever, I gave the starter a kick. It didn't start but it sounded like it had always sounded, not bad, not full of muddy water. I figured even if it wouldn't start, another kick wouldn't harm it. So I gave it a second try. It still didn't start. Then I remembered that there had been times under normal circumstances when it required four or five kicks to start the motor. So with that in mind, the faith and hope which I had rejected a short time before, were feebly creeping back into my mind. And with that change in my attitude, I kicked the starting pedal the third time. Well, you can't imagine my surprise when it started and ran like a new cycle on that third try. I was thrilled and overjoyed. I had always had faith in myself, but until now I had never had that much faith in motors. After that, I felt there was no place I couldn't go with a machine like that working for me. I crossed the big water on the railroad bridge and then got back on the muddy highway. The next time I came to a dip with a lot of water in it, I walked right through with that little Scout puffing along beside me. When water came up over the exhaust pipe, it kept puffing right along. Then water got up over the magneto, then over the spark plugs, and the motor never missed a shot. However, I watched closely to see that water didn't get into the carburetor suction. Everything else was under water and the motor still ran perfectly. She was a real little Scout. If she could have cooked, I would have married her. But years later when I finally did get married, I could easily see that I would have gotten very little comfort from snuggling up to a wet motorcycle on a cold winter night. The road and the rain were the same all the way to McCamey. There was an oil boom out there. Jobs were plentiful. Crime and violence were apt to show up at any time. They told me a man was shot down in the street the day before I got there. I couldn't prove it if I had wanted to. They had already carried him away, and I didn't look for the man who shot him.