I was directed to a "C'fay" that had the reputation of providing the best meal in the town. I pushed open its swing doors and beheld a picture of cleanliness and tidiness. The tables were all spick and span in their clean white tablecloths and not a vestige of dirt was visible anywhere.
The small boys of the town displayed a lively interest in me as I disported myself with my camera at the expense of their public buildings (to be exact, one wooden church). "Look at 'is boots, Jem," said one. "Looks like as though he's a gor-dem buck-jumper." "Aye, but 'is pants don't look ter be the right stuff, Joe."
I left them wondering and fell upon the trail once more. A few miles out I came to a "round-up" of steers. There were ten or twelve cow-boys on horseback, and some 5,000 or 6,000 steers grouped together in a large dense mass, blocking the road altogether. "Tough guys, those cow-boys," I remarked to myself and pretended to ignore them. But I couldn't help thinking what MIGHT happen if I barged into one of their animals or if for any reason they didn't like the look of my face!
Slowly, very slowly, the great mass of cattle moved, like a tide sweeping over the plain. Carefully I picked my way along and felt relieved when I left them right behind. I opened out and prepared for a long weary jaunt. The next town of any kind was ninety miles away.
The first thirty were dead flat but hard going. There had evidently been considerable rain recently. Emaciated mud-holes were now rock-hard contortions in the road. Often I rode on the prairie in preference.
Another thing was evident. There had been a great drought the previous year. Ranching is impossible without water, and even now, in spite of the recent rains, could be seen here and there a great lake-bed completely dried up. Nothing remained but a great mass of sun-baked hoof-marked mud, and here and there a skeleton lying upon it. The ranches of New Mexico are of huge size and cover enormous areas. True, a few good years mean a fortune to the rancher, but one bad one means ruin. Hundreds of ranches had been ruined the previous year, I found, and several thousand head of cattle had died from the drought. As I passed along, their skeletons lay strewn at the roadside, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups of a dozen or more. Hardly a refreshing sight for a poor innocent motor-cyclist!