Grateful to him for taking this humane view rather than arresting us, we said good-by and went our way, exhilarated at having triumphed over the custom departments of two nations in one short hour. It offset the morning’s gloom, and the two horrible sandwiches (fried egg) with which Douglas had affronted our digestions. At three o’clock we reached Rodeo, which means “round-up.” We should have been there at ten. The town faced the desert, and seemed permanently depressed at its outlook. It contained a few Mexican shanties, a garage and general store, and a poison-green architectural crime labeled “Rooms,” surrounded by a field reeking with dead cattle. Even our Optimist, when he laid out our route, had exclaimed, “If your night’s stop is Rodeo, Lord help you!” The next town, Deming, lay a hundred miles beyond, with no settlement between. We looked once at the hotel, bought gas at fifty cents the gallon, and pushed on. Whether we would reach Deming that night, we had no idea. Nearly a day, as desert travel goes, lay between us and food, drink and shelter. We had an orange apiece, and our folding tent, stove and lantern. We had a guidebook which, to escape a libel suit, I shall call “Keyes’ Good Road Book,” though it was neither a good road-book nor a good-road book. We had an abounding faith in guardian angels. Lastly, we had Toby’s peculiar gift at reading guide-books, whereby she selects a page at random, regardless of our route, telescopes paragraphs together, skips a line here and there, and finishes in another state. For this reason, as I pointed out with some heat, we took a road which led fourteen jolty miles out of our way. It came out that Toby had been reading the Colorado section. So chastened was she by this misadventure that at the next doubtful corner, where a windmill marked two forks, she kept her nose glued to the page and read with meticulous faithfulness, “Pass wind-mill to the left.” Now the left led through a muddy water-hole, while an excellent road apparently trailed to the right of the windmill. “Left?” I inquired, with pointed skepticism, “or right?” She peeked again into the guidebook, and answered firmly, “Left!” Toby was right for once, but she had chosen the moment to be right when the guidebook was wrong, which entirely canceled her score. I drove into the chuck-hole,--and stayed there. The hole was V shaped, two feet deep at the point, and shelved so steeply that our spare tires made a barrier against its edge when we tried to back out. We were following Horace Greeley’s advice literally. We had gone West, and now we were settling down with the country. We settled to our running board, then to our hubs, and then over them. It was the more exasperating because our car was immersed in the only water hole within a hundred miles.