with some
sand here and there. The country is rolling, but no steep hills.

Up to this time the machine had required no attention, but just
beyond Otis, while stopping to inquire the way, we discovered a
rusty round nail embedded to the head in the right rear tire. The
tire showed no signs of deflation, but on drawing the nail the air
followed, showing a puncture. As the nail was scarcely
three-quarters of an inch long,--not long enough to go clear through
and injure the inner coating on the opposite side,--it was entirely
practical to reinsert and run until it worked out. A very fair
temporary repair might have been made by first dipping the nail in a
tire cement, but the nail was rusty and stuck very well.

An hour later, at La Porte, the nail was still doing good service
and no leak could be detected. We wired back to Chicago to have an
extra tire sent on ahead.

From Chicago to La Porte, by way of Hobart, the roads are
excellent, excepting always the few miles near South Chicago. Keep
to the south--even as far south as Valparaiso--rather than to the
north, near the lake. The roads are hilly and sandy near the lake.

Beware the so-called road map; it is a snare and a delusion. A
road which seems most seductive on the bicycler's road map may be
a sea of sand or a veritable quagmire, but with a fine bicycle
path at the side. As you get farther east these cinder paths are
protected by law, with heavy fines for driving thereon; it
requires no little restraint to plough miles and miles through
bottomless mud on a narrow road in the Mohawk valley with a superb
three-foot cinder path against your very wheels. The machine of
its own accord will climb up now and then; it requires all the
vigilance of a law-abiding driver to keep it in the mud, where it
is so unwilling to travel.

So far as finding and keeping the road is concerned,--and it is a
matter of great concern in this vast country, where roads,
cross-roads, forks, and all sorts of snares and delusions abound
without sign-boards to point the way,--the following directions may
be given once for all:

If the proposed route is covered by any automobile hand-book or
any automobile publication, get it, carry it with you and be
guided by it; all advice of ancient inhabitants to the contrary
notwithstanding.

If there is no publication covering the route, take pains to get
from local automobile sources information about the several
possible routes to the principal