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From Off the Road Database
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<p>It was the universal opinion that if the machine could stand the punishment sure to be inflicted between the Gap and Donner Lake, it would not be troubled at any point east of the Sierras, between Truckee, Cal., and New York City. Leaving Emigrant Gap, the game commenced in earnest. Unbridged streams were encountered and the machine took to the water like a duck in high spirits. Splash she would go in, and drenched she would come out. The water would many times come up as high as the motor and up would go our feet to prevent them getting wet.
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<p>The motor never flinched, its power never lagged, it pulled us through those rocks and up the stiff grades. Emigrants westward bound in the early days would never trust horses or mules to convey their wagons safely to the bottom of one particularly stiff and rugged grade which Mr. Winton caused the motor to ascend. Those early day pathfinders would tie a rope to the rear axle of the wagon, take a turn around a tree and lower it gently.
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<p>Mr. Winton sent me to hunt a telegraph station. Walked east for about a mile until I could look up the mountain side and see the railroad snow sheds with some sort of a station in an opening. I climbed up through the snow, over fallen trees, broke passage through tangled bushes, and finally came upon a surprised operator, who asked what the trouble was. It was a little telegraph station for railroad service only, but the dispatcher took my messages and repeated them to the Gap, from which point they were sent, one to the Winton factory at Cleveland, asking for duplicate of part damaged, and another to L. S. Keeley, of Emigrant Gap, to come for us and our effects and take us back to the Gap, where we would wait for the repair parts. The machine was left alone in the mountain wilderness.
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<p>A few miles from the ferry, a tree had fallen across the road. Mr. Winton used the ax to splendid advantage and, after some delay, the road was clear, and we were going ahead once more. Reached Sacramento at 1:15 P.m., but delayed in California's capital city just long enough to take on five gallons of gasoline. One we went toward the Sierras, passing through Roseville, Rocklin, Loomis, Penry, New Castle, Auburn, Colfax, Cape Horn Mills, and when darkness was fast approaching halt was made in the little gold mining town of Gold Run.
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<p>On the 25th, after getting free from the snow bank and passing through a number of small deposits, we got to Truckee, where we took on fuel and went on to Hobart Mills, a delightful lumber town, where Mr. Winton decided we would stay during the following day, Sunday, and dry our clothes. Reached Hobart Mills in a terrific downpour.
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<p>Having been with Mr. Winton on this trip, I saw and experienced things the like of which automobile drivers in every civilized portion of the North American continent know not of, nor can an active imagination be brought to picture the terrible abuse the machine had to take, or the hardships its riders endured in forcing and fighting the way from San Francisco to that point in Nevada where the project was abandoned—where Mr. Winton had forced upon him the positive conviction that to put an automobile across the sand hills of the Nevada desert was an utter impossibility under existing conditions.
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<p>When the New Hampshire Rocks were met, trouble seemed to be ahead. I asked Mr. Winton if he would put the machine to what appeared to me the supreme and awful test. "Of course I will," was the short and meaning answer, and on went the machine. One big bump and I shot into the air like a rocket. I was not thrown from the machine, however, and thereafter busied myself hanging on with hands and bracing with feet. At every turn and twist in the road, the rocks grew larger, and I wondered if anything mechanical could stand the terrible punishment.
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<p>That day we plunged through four unbridged streams, and in one place where a bad washout had occurred, it became necessary for us to build a bridge before the machine would “take the ditch.” We lugged railroad ties—many ties from a pile close to the railroad tracks some distance away. And they were heavier than five-pound boxes of chocolate, but we finally got enough and bumped the machine through and on its way.
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<p>It was a condition never encountered by an automobilist in the history of the industry. We were in soft, shifting quicksand where power counted as nothing. We were face to face with a condition the like of which cannot be imagined—one must be in it, fight with it, be conquered by it, before a full and complete realization of what it actually is will dawn upon the mind.
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<p>Reached Gold Run at 7:40 P.M., just in time to escape darkness and avoid going into camp on the mountain side. On such roads, or, rather, surrounded as we were by canons, operation in the dark could not be regarded as safe. Our run that day was 123 miles.
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<p>Arrived at the Gap and Mr. Winton soon developed uneasiness because of the enforced delay in the trip. Next morning he announced his intention of making a temporary repair and working ahead slowly through the snow.
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<p>Instead of running the thirty-two miles, we clipped off forty-four between Oakland and Port Costa as a consequence of mistaking the road to San Pablo and going around by way of Martinez. Reached Port Costa too late for the No. 4 trip and had to wait until 11:17 A.M., when the transcontinental express (The Overland Limited) was ferried over.
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<p>Got upon the road 7:40 A.M. Reached Rio Vista and two miles further on to "Old River" at 8:40. Go east on the levee road, which is of adobe formation with steep descending banks on both sides. On the left side is the river; the opposite bank runs down to a thicket, beyond which are orchards. Slide off the treacherous road on either side and nothing short of a derrick and wrecking crew could serve to a practical and satisfactory end.
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<p>But a kind providence was with us during the storm, and the lightning kept off. Getting up the Wadsworth sand hill, we cut sage brush and kept piling it up in front of all four wheels to give them something to hold to and prevent slipping and burrowing in the soft sand until the machine was buried to the axles and it became necessary to use block, tackle, and shovels to pull up to the surface. Got to the top at last, but found no improvement in sand conditions. It was the hardest kind of work to make the slightest progress, but at 5:45 in the evening halted at Desert Station, a place inhabited by D. H. Gates, section boss, his wife, Train Dispatcher Howard (his office, cook house, etc., were all combined in a box car which had been set out on a short siding), and a dozen Japanese section hands.
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<p>Reached Wadsworth splashed and covered with mud, wet through and hungry. Spent night at Wadsworth. Residents warned Mr. Winton about sand, more especially the sand hill just east of the town. Next morning we took on stock of rations and drinking water. That "sand hill," or rather the remembrance of it and the balance of our trip to Desert Station that day, are like the remembrance of another beastly nightmare.
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<p>There is nothing more to tell. We left Mill City that night and rode into Winnemucca on a freight train. The machine, aided by its own power, had been hauled from its bed by horses and returned to Mill City, where arrangements were made to load it for Cleveland. We left Winnemucca May 30, at 2:40 P.M. on a Southern Pacific passenger train, and arrived in Cleveland June 2, at 7:35 P.M.
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<p>All during the afternoon, it rained and the wind blew a gale, but the temperature was high and we did not mind. Had it not been for the rain and its cooling effect there on the sand and sage brush desert, I doubt whether we could have stood it.
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<p>The storm that day caused us to speculate largely as to whether some of the many bolts of lightning hitting close around us would not strike the machine, demolish it completely, and incidentally put the operator and passenger out of business.
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<p>"Not on your life," retorted the plucky automobilist; into the carriage I jumped, he pulled the lever and off we went. The course led up a hill, but there was enough bottom to the sand to give the wheels a purchase and from the hill summit we forged down into the valley where the country was comparatively level. Nothing in sight but sage brush and sand, sand and sage brush.
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<p>Passed the night comfortably, and when the road was taken next morning (May 29) at 6 o'clock, the sun was shining and Mr. Gates predicted no rain for the day.
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