Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1906-06-30

brakes. There was a thump, a screech
of tortured steel, the machine sl1idded
and jumped, then came to full stop,
like COW pony that throws itself on
its launches. The front wheels were
buried into the treacherous soil.
With infinite labor, they pulled her
back out of it. They examined the
ground and found that the road led
through an alkali swamp. Over the
oozy depths crust that seemed hard,
but broke to weight, stretched like a
shimmering white lie.
Chafey went up on a little knoll to
reconnoitre. The heat waves, rolling
like gigantic breakers, caused strange
illusions. On the top of the knoll
Chafey seemed to be limping as if his
left leg were cut off at the knee. Then
he began running in an extraordinary
fashion around in a circle. The rest
of the party called him back, afraid.
He assured them that he had been
walking peaceably along the ridge.
They were in the land of decisions,
and everything was false
They held a conference, and then
decided upon taking a wild chance.
With only the chauffeur in it, the
auto was backed far up the grade it
had come down. The rest of the men
spread along the path through the
marsh, ready for any emergency. Sui
Ivan dropped his handkerchief for a
signal, and the machine started down.
the hill.
Right away the chauffeur put on
full speed. The steel flaps in front
opened like wings. Silently at first,
like a shadow, she whizzed down;
then, as she caught the full impetus
of power and grade, she began to buzz
in crescendo that rose till she roared
like bomb shell. Down she came
a-roar, like a meteor from the skies
An involuntary cry came from the
men in the marsh as she bore down
upon them. She cleared the first hun
dred feet as if with one spring. She
slowed, hesitated, waved from side to
side, then, the wheels catching a bit
of harder ground, jumped forward
again, through an oozy place, the
wheels bespattering the skies. The
men watched her, breathless. She
struck a succession of hard spots be-
tween mud holes. Each time the
wheels, catching the hard spot, jumped
her over the next soft one, and thus,
by a series of mad leaps, she went al
most across, the chauffeur rising and
falling upon his seat like the rider OF
dromedaIy. On the further edge, a
few feet from safety, she seemed to
mire for good. She stopped, the
wheels whirring madly through the
slime. But the men alongside, fren-
zied, threw their coats, their hats,
their shirts, beneath the wheels, and
slowly, inch by inch, she at length
rose upon the hard ground.
Everything afterward was easy in
comparison, though enough to daunt
wills forged of baser metals than
those of Sullivan, Campbell and Cha
fey. An examination of the machine
showed the frame that supported the
engine to be cracked. 1t was braced
with drill and shovel handle. Five
miles from Emigrant Springs the par
ty ran out of water, and the machine
refused to go without it. Leaving
Sullivan and the chauffeur with the
small canteen that remained, Camp
bell anu Chafey hiked on afoot with
the empty water bags. With the des-
ert sun pumping the water out of their
bones, it was a desperate race, and
their tongues were swollen almost out
of their mouths before they reached
tho litt1a pOo1 Of cta watar They