Although it was not yet three o'clock, Mr. Adams persuaded us not to go any farther.

"This is a fateful day, gentlemen," he said. "It is a day of bad luck. It would be foolish not to understand that. Gentlemen, we shall outwit (ate. Tomorrow it will be powerless to interfere with our journey."

And he went off to a Ford dealer to find out how much we would have to pay to repair the damages. He asked us to wait in the automobile, around the corner. For about twenty minutes we sat there, discussing with Mrs. Adams the unfortunate occurrences of that fateful day.

"Well, we have nothing more to fear today," said Mrs. Adams. "All our bad luck is behind us."

Ten more minutes passed, but Mr. Adams still did not appear. "I knew it!" exclaimed Mrs. Adams. "You must never let him go anywhere alone. I am certain that right now he is sitting with the dealer and discussing with him the League of Nations, having utterly forgotten that we are waiting for him."

Another ten minutes passed, and a boy messenger came running with the message that Mr. Adams asked us immediately to go to him at the store. Mrs. Adams turned pale.

"Has anything happened to him?" she asked quickly.

"No, ma'am," replied the boy, looking askance.

We ran full speed into the store.

A strange spectacle met our eye. It seemed to us that not only we but not a single inhabitant of Gallup throughout the entire existence of this little town had ever seen the like. It looked as if a heavy Caproni bombing plane had suddenly dropped here its entire reserve of bombs assigned exclusively for Haile Selassie. The large plate-glass window of the store lay shattered on the sidewalk. In the empty frame of the window, against a background of two new Fords, stood Mr. Adams, holding in his hands the frame of his glasses, A finger on his right hand was cut, but he did not pay any attention to that and was explaining something about the League of Nations to the bewildered owner of the store.

"No, no, sir!" he was saying. "You don't understand the League of Nations!"

"What have you done?" exclaimed Mrs. Adams, gasping. "But, Becky, I didn't do anything. I walked through the show window. I was talking to this gentleman, and did not notice that instead of going through the door I went through the window. What can I do, if this window is so large that it looks like the door? And besides, it goes right down to the ground!"

Mrs. Adams began to inspect her beloved husband. It was simply incredible. Mr. Adams was quite uninjured; only his glasses were broken. "And it didn't hurt you?" asked Mrs. Adams. "This is, after all, very thick plate-glass."

"But, Becky, I was so surprised that I didn't feel anything!"

Mr. Adams compensated the bewildered dealer for the damage and said joyously :

"You must not think, gentlemen, that I wasted my time here. I found out everything about the repair of our car. It does not pay to repair it now. This is not the last accident. Others will run into us. When we return to New York we shall repair everything and paint it all up at once. Let us not hurry, gentlemen! You will always have the opportunity and the time to spend your dollars."

We were so afraid that the misfortunes of that day had not yet come to an end that we walked down the street, moving our feet carefully and looking around like hunted deer. Only when we were already in bed did we quiet down somewhat, realizing that at last the day of mishaps was over.

25 The Desert

AMERICA WAS preparing for Christmas. Before the stores of the small towns electric lamps of various colours were already lighted on the cardboard Christmas trees that decorated all the street lamps. The traditional Santa Claus, the kindly Christmas grandfather with a long white beard, was driving through the streets in his gilded chariot. Electric fans scattered artificial snow from the chariot. Choruses of radio angels chanted old English carols. Santa Claus held in both his hands a department store sign which proclaimed: "Christmas Presents on Credit." Newspapers wrote that the holiday trade was better this year than the year before.

The closer we moved in the direction of California, the warmer the sun became, while the sky turned purer and bluer, the more there was of artificial snow, of cardboard fir trees and grey beards, and the more liberal became the credit for Christmas presents.

We crossed the border into Arizona. The keen, strong light of the desert lay on the excellent highway that led to Flagstaff. The obtrusive bill-boards almost disappeared, and only occasionally from behind a cactus or a yellowed tumbleweed emerged an impudent little Coca-Cola placard on a stick. The petrol stations became less and less frequent. But to make up for that, the hats of the rare residents here became broader and broader. Never before had we seen, and probably never again shall we see, such large hats as in Arizona, the land of deserts and canyons.

One can scarcely find anything more grandiose and more beautiful in the world than an American desert. We drove over it for an entire week and never tired of admiring it. We were fortunate. Winter in the desert is like a bright and clean summer, only without the oppressive heat and the dust.

The region into which we drove was utterly wild and desolate. Yet we did not feel that we were cut off from the world. The road and the automobile have brought the desert nearer, have torn off its shroud of mystery, without making it any less attractive. On the contrary, the beauty created by nature was supplemented by the beauty created by the

deft hands of men. Admiring the pure colours of the desert, its complex and mighty architecture, we never ceased to admire the broad even highway with its silvery bridges, its neatly placed water-mains, its mounds and dips. Even the petrol stations which had become boresome in the East and in the Middle West, here in the desert looked like proud monuments to man's might. And the automobile in the desert seemed twice as beautiful as in the city. Its fluent, polished surface reflected the sun; and its shadow, deep and sharply lined, fell proudly on the virgin sands.

Desert roads are indubitably one of the most remarkable achievements of American technique. They are as good as in populated places. The feme neat and clear black and yellow signs reminding you of curves, of narrow places, and of zigzags. The same white signs in a black border showing the number of the road, while the wooden arrows with the names of cities show the distance to them. In the desert there are, in addition,

those wooden constructions which are met quite frequently and are called "cattle guards." Vast parcels of land belonging to cattlemen were separated from each other by barbed wire, so that the cattle should not cross from one parcel of land to the other, thereby avoiding quarrels and keeping the picturesque cowboys from bringing their Colts into action. But what to do to keep the cattle from passing from parcel to parcel across the highway ? Surely, the highway cannot be crossed with barbed wire! So, an anonymous inventor thought of the solution. The wire stretched on either side of the highway. A ditch was dug across the road and over the ditch a metal grate was placed. There is no interference whatever with automobiles, while cows, afraid that their hooves may go through the grating, refrain from undesirable excursions into other people's land. It's all very simple in America.

In America travellers are never oppressed by the usual doubts of the journey: "Where are we now? Shall we find a night's lodging? Is the speedometer lying ? Didn't we go too far to the west and is it not necessary, therefore, to reset our watches?" No! The traveller is not disturbed by the problem of a night's lodging. He is accustomed to find waiting for him camps consisting of several small houses (in each little house is a room, a shower, and a gas range, and beside the little house is a garage). Daily on the road you will find a bill-board reading: "Haifa mile ahead—check speedometers." And actually a half-mile farther along stands a new petrol pump, and from that to the next one will be five miles, and you can check the correctness of your speedometer by it, as it marks off the distance covered. Later on, you may find the touchingly solicitous announcement: "Time to reset your watch." While to the question: "Where are we now?" there is the precise and somewhat solemn answer: