We had seen many of her kind, always touring the country in a little rattly car, out for a good time, careless of looks, dressed in a motley of overalls, sunbonnets, middy blouses, regardless of age or former condition of dignity, sometimes driving, and sometimes delegating the task to a little man crowded up against the wheel;--there is never more than one man to a carful of women and children. We were now in the heart of the sage-brush tourist belt, where motoring is not the sport of the wealthy, but the necessity of the poor. With bedding rolls and battered suitcases strapped to running boards; canteens, tents, chuck-boxes and the children’s beds tied on with ropes wherever ropes will go; loaded inside with babies, dogs and Pater and Materfamilias, and outside with boastful, not to say sneering banners; these little cars serve for transportation, freight-van, restaurant and hotel. Bought second or third hand, they rattle the family off on vacations or business, and at the journey’s end are sold third or fourth-hand. At night no garage or hotel for them, but a corner, a secluded corner if they arrive early enough, in the municipal parking grounds. Here with frank gregariousness they exchange confidences with other sage-brush tourists, while Paterfamilias mends the dubious tires and tinkers with the weak spark plug, and Materfamilias cooks supper over an open fire. Then they drape a tent or a mere canvas over the car, take a lantern inside, and one by one undress, blissfully ignorant that their silhouettes are shamelessly outlined on the canvas. As these municipal camps were a bit too noisy for people who loved sleep as did Toby and I, we usually sought the open country, but we loved to walk through the grounds, and enjoy their sociability. The rich and haughty, we thought, would not be half so bored with travel if they earned their delights as these sage-brushers do. Fords have replaced prairie schooners, and Indians are less interested in one’s scalp than one’s pocketbook, yet overland travel still furnishes adventure, as any one of the tow-heads we met from El Paso to Gallup will tell their grandchildren fifty years hence. But you must leave behind limousine and liveried chauffeur, forswear palace hotels, and get out and rub elbows with folks. The real sage-brush tourists care nothing for “side.” Proudly flaunting their atrocious banners, they patch their tires to the last ribbon, and wash their dirty babies in public.