another Mexican in delicately green velvet trousers. He appeared to be dead.

The accident had evidently just occurred, and the survivor had lost his senses to such an extent that he could not tell us coherently what had happened. He walked around the truck and muttered something senselessly. He seemed insane.

The man who was lying on his back opened his eyes and groaned. That horrible sound brought the multi-coloured Mexican back to consciousness, and he turned to us with a plea to take the wounded man to His home in the village of Willard. We offered to take him to the nearest hospital, but the Mexican insisted that we must take him to the village. To do that we had to make a detour of thirty miles off our road. Altogether we got the wounded man with difficulty into our automobile.

In the meantime an American drove up behind us. He asked whether any help was needed. We thanked him and said that we were taking the wounded man. The multi-coloured Mexican stayed with his broken truck.

The road was very difficult, and three hours-passed before we reached Willard. The entire village immediately ran to our machine. God only knows with what the local residents are occupied. In spite of the fact that it was an ordinary day, they were all dressed in new jackets made of leather and fur. We surrendered the wounded Mexican to his relatives. For a minute he regained consciousness and told them what had happened. He was carried to his home. Just then from behind, bobbing over the ruts, up drove the machine with the American who had offered his help. He had driven behind us all the way,

"You see, he said, "you are very careless. This Mexican might have died in your machine. You did not know how badly he had been injured. Maybe he was already dying. Can you imagine what could have I happened? You arrive in a Mexican village, where nobody knows you, and bring to them the corpse of one of their fellow residents. The Mexicans would think right away that you had run over him. How could you prove that he had injured himself in his own machine? The Mexicans are hot-tempered people, and you might have found yourself in a bad mess. So I thought I had better follow behind you and, in case of anything, be your witness."

Such an act tells a lot about the nature of Americans.

Before we parted and drove away in divergent directions, the American gave us his calling card. Suppose, after all, his testimony of this case might be of use to us. Then his address would come in handy. From His calling card we learned that: our witness was the principal of a grammar school—an elementary school. In order to do us this favour, he had had to make a considerable detour.In the character of the American people there are many splendid and appealing traits.

They are excellent workers; they have golden hands. Our engineers say that it is a genuine pleasure to work with Americans. Americans are precise, yet far from pedantic. They are neat, they are accurate, they know how to keep their word, and they trust the word of others. They are always ready to come to your aid. They are excellent comrades and easy to get along with.

But one fine trait—curiosity—is almost non-existent with Americana, That is especially true of the youth. We covered sixteen thousand kilometres of American roads in our automobile, and we saw a multitude of people. Almost every day we took hitchhikers into our car. All <>l them were very willing to talk, but not one of them was curious enough to ask us who we were.

On the road we were met by a wooden arch:

"Welcome to New Mexico."

Near the arch we were charged twenty-four cents for a gallon of petrol. Petrol in New Mexico costs more than in Texas. The greeting of welcome was somewhat poisoned by the commercial spirit. Various prices are charged for petrol in various states, ranging from fourteen to thirty cents per gallon. It is most expensive, of course, in deserts, where it has to be delivered from afar. Hence, frequently at the borders of states one meets with placards like this one:

"Stock up on petrol here. In Arizona it costs four cents more."

Naturally, under the circumstances you can't hold out. You stock up !

The clay at the side of the road was red, the desert was yellow, the sky was blue. At times we ran across stunted cedars. For two hundred miles we drove over a fairly well-beaten gravel road, but beside it was being built a highway from Los Angeles to New York.

We stopped at an old well over which hung the large announcement:

"Your grandfather drank water here on his way to California for gold."

In another announcement this well called itself the first in America. Beside the historical well a man sat in his little booth and sold coloured postcards with views of the same well. Around the post which was driven into the ground walked two chained young bears. The man told us that they were very vicious. But the bears did not know English, it would seem, because they stood up on their rear paws in a most toadying manner and begged the travellers for gifts. Behind the booth could be seen an old fortress with its wooden belfry of the Wayne Reid type. In a word, it smelled of scalping and similar childish joys. The only thing lacking was an Indian arrow striking the belfry and still quivering from its flight.

A battered old machine stopped at the well just as we pulled up. In it, among pillows and cotton blankets, sat the most ordinary mamma with a tow-headed howling boy on her knee. On the footboard in a special rack stood an obedient dog, its thick and kindly tail twisted up. The husband squeezed his way out from behind the wheel and stretched his legs, while talking with the keeper of the historical well.

Wiping her son's nose, Mamma quickly told us about her family affairs. They were going from Kansas City to California. Her husband had found work there. All their possessions were right here in the automobile.

The dog was fidgeting estlessly in its rack. Beside it on the footboard was attached an additional little tank of petrol, and the odour stifled the dog. It looked piteously at its mistress. It was evidently eager to arrive in California as soon as possible.

In the evening we drove into Santa Fe, one of the oldest cities of America.

22 Santa Fe

AS A matter of fact, we still do not know what guided us in selecting ahotel in a new city. Usually, we drove slowly down the street, passed several hotels in silence, as if we knew something bad about them, and then, just as silently, without any previous agreement, we would stop at the next hotel, as if we knew something good about it.

We don't know what played a greater role here: whether it was our writers' intuition or the experience of that veteran traveller, Mr. Adams, but the hotel always satisfied our needs. No doubt, those we had rejected would have been no worse. A four-dollar room for two had beds with good springs, several blankets and pillows as flat as a dollar, a bathroom

with a white mosaic floor, and an eternally hissing steam radiator.

But then, we did know definitely that modest travellers should not stop in hotels called "Mayflower." "Mayflower," or "Flower of the May," was the name of the ship on which the first settlers from England came to America, so that is the name usually given now to the most expensive hotel in the city.

In Santa Fe we stopped at the Hotel Montezuma.

When we entered the halls of the Montezuma several Americans lolling in rocking-chairs with newspapers in their hands, regarded us avidly. In their eyes glowed the unquenchable desire to talk to someone, to chatter, . to while the time away. Strange as it may seem, in busy super-business America there are such people. For the most part they are gentlemen who are no longer young, in decorous suits of a colour peculiar to doctors. Hither because they have already earned enough dollars or because they have lost all hope of earning any more, the fact remains that they always seem to have a lot of free time; hence, see-sawing in their hotel rockers, they eagerly lie in wait for their prey. God forbid that you hook such a man with a careless question! He will not let his interlocutor go for several hours. In the loud voice of the American optimist he will tell you everything he knows, and in every phrase there will be "Sure," which means "Of course," and "Surely," which means "Of course," and "Of course,"which also means "Of course." Besides that, in almost every phrase there will not fail to be the word "Nice!"