An hour later, he rattled up to the opposite bank, threw us a sympathetic grin, and got to work. It was a pleasure to watch Bill work. It is a pleasure to watch anyone work provided one has no share in it oneself, but some people weary one by puttering. I could watch Bill on the hardest kind of job, and feel fresh and fairly rested when he finished. He always knew beforehand what he intended to do, and did it deliberately and easily. He first drove two stakes into the ground, some distance apart, attached a double pulley to them, and to the front bar of the car, the only part not under water, and he and his assistants pulled gradually and patiently till from across the river we could see the sweat stand out on their brows. In ten minutes, we were astonished to see the half drowned giant move slightly. Hope rose as the river fell. Bill took another reef in his trousers and the pulley, then another and another, and at last the old lady groaned, left her watery bed, shook herself, and clambered up on dry land. [Illustration: THE CAR SAGGED DRUNKENLY ON ONE SIDE.] [Illustration: FORDING A RIVER NEAR SANTA FE. Crossing fords, to our hubs, which yesterday were mere trickles and to-morrow would be raging torrents.] [Illustration: ON THE WAY TO GALLUP. Jack and all sank in the soft quicksand beneath the weight of the car.] We crossed on horseback to the other side and waited with a sick internal feeling, while Bill removed the wheels and examined the damage. “Everything seems all right,--no harm done,” remarked Toby, with hasty cheerfulness, emerging from the taciturnity resulting from one closed eye and a general atmospheric depression among the rest of us. Her remark showed that she now expected to assume her usual place in society. “If anything,” I answered bitterly, “the car is improved by its bath.” The poor old wreck stood sagging heavily on one spring, two wheels off, the cushions water-logged, and a foot of mud and sand on the tonneau floor and encrusting the gears. Maps, tools, wraps, chains, tires and the sickly remains of our lunch made a sodden salad, liberally mixed with Rio Grande silt. Sticks and floating refuse had caught in the hubs and springs, and refused to be dislodged. A junk man would have offered us a pair of broken scissors and a 1908 alarm clock for her as she stood, and demanded cash and express prepaid. I think Toby gathered that my intent was sarcasm, for she relapsed into comparative silence, while in deep gloom we watched Bill scoop grit out of the gears. I braced myself to ask a question. “Can you save her, Bill?” “Well,” Bill cast a keen blue eye at the remains, “the battery’s probably ruined, and the springs will have to be taken apart and the rust emoried off, and the mud cleaned out of the carburetor and engine, and the springs rehung, and if any sand has got into the bearin’s you’ll never be through with the damage, and the cushions are probably done for,--life’s soaked out of them.”