Our homeward journey seemed nearly ended before we reached Chicago. Driving over these perfectly kept roads of the middle west furnished no new experience. We decided to shorten the remaining interval still further by taking the Detroit boat to Buffalo. When we suddenly made this decision we had less than two days to make the 340 miles,--time enough, except for the state of our tires, which resembled that mid-Victorian neurasthenic Sweet Alice Ben Bolt. They collapsed if you gave them a smile, and blew out at fear of a frown. No longer in the belt of chivalry, we toiled over obstreperous rims, warped and bent from drought and flood, while able bodied men sailed by, and the only speech we had from them was an occasional jeering, “Hello, girls!” Thus we knew we were fast returning to civilization. As we made out our bill of lading at Detroit we heard for the last time, “Well, you are a long ways from home.” After that we felt we had already completed our period of vagabondage. But the fates were not to let us finish tamely. The last act of our drama began when our rear tire gave way, and lost us two hours while we waited for repairs, just out of Chicago. The eastern entrance to Chicago, with its unsightly, factory-pocked marshes is cheerless enough even under blue skies. But a soggy downpour only made us shiver and hurry on. Chicago was well enough, as cities go, but the middle west did not hold us, having neither the courtesy of the South, the wide beauty of the West nor the self-respecting antiquity of the East. Yet here and there in the open country of Illinois, with its broad golden wheat fields, tall elms, and its homelike blue haze softening distant woods, a bit of English Warwickshire peeped out at us. The drizzle soon settled into a steady downpour. All day we slushed over glistening macadam and through the heavy mud of section roads. Night fell early under the gloom of the rain while we were still many miles from the end of our day’s stint. We decided to go as long as we could, or we never should reach Detroit in time. Camping was out of the question,--Illinois was too civilized for it to be safe procedure. So in deference to the solemn midwestern habit of laying out their country like a checkerboard, we paced so many miles east, so many miles south.