He
swung out of the bug, cranked up, climbed back, went awkwardly on, "I
read those books you gave me. They're slick--mean to say, interesting.
Where that young fellow in _Youth's Encounter_ wanted to be a bishop and
a soldier and everything---- Just like me, except Schoenstrom is
different, from London, some ways! I always wanted to be a brakie, and
then a yeggman. But I wasn't bright enough for either. I just became a
garage man. And I---- Some day I'm going to stop using slang. But it'll
take an operation!"

He was streaking down the road, and Claire was sobbing, "Oh, the lamb,
the darling thing! Fretting about his slang, when he wasn't afraid in
that horrible nightmare. If we could just do something for him!"

"Don't you worry about him, dolly. He's a very energetic chap. And----
Uh---- Mightn't we drive on a little farther, perhaps? I confess that
the thought of our recent guest still in this vicinity----"

"Yes, and---- Oh, I'm shameless. If Mohammed Milton won't stay with our
car mountain, we're going to tag after him."

But when she reached the next hill, with its far shining outlook, there
was no Milt and no Teal bug on the road ahead.

CHAPTER XI

SAGEBRUSH TOURISTS OF THE GREAT HIGHWAY

She had rested for two days in Miles City; had seen the horse-market,
with horse-wranglers in chaps; had taken dinner with army people at Fort
Keogh, once the bulwark against the Sioux, now nodding over the dry
grass on its parade ground.

By the Yellowstone River, past the Crow reservation, Claire had driven
on through the Real West, along the Great Highway. The Red Trail and the
Yellowstone Trail had joined now and she was one of the new Canterbury
Pilgrims. Even Mr. Boltwood caught the trick of looking for licenses,
and cried, "There's a Connecticut car!"

To the Easterner, a drive from New York to Cape Cod, over asphalt, is
viewed as heroic, but here were cars that had casually started on
thousand-mile vacations. She kept pace not only with large cars touring
from St. Louis or Detroit to Glacier Park and Yellowstone, but also she
found herself companionable with families of workmen, headed for a new
town and a new job, and driving because a flivver, bought second-hand
and soon to be sold again, was cheaper than trains.

"Sagebrush Tourists" these camping adventurers were called. Claire
became used to small cars, with curtain-lights broken, bearing
wash-boilers or refrigerators on the back, pasteboard su