The next letter I have is dated August 19th, 1928 from San Francisco, California. Dad would have just turned 25.
“Adventure, once more, has whispered its magic travel words in my ear, and beguiled me to follow some almost unexplored by-ways, through the mysterious sierra-land of the Great South West. By automobile and stock-saddle I have been so far from the railroad that one could soon forget their noisome traction.
Since my home letters are so punctuated with thousands of miles, I will endeavour to make this one an abbreviated synopsis of my travels and doings from the time of my leaving Chicago.
Excepting my trip to London by train, this journey from Chicago to the desert town of Gallup was the only really lengthy railway trip that I had ever made, and while it was full of interest, I must say that railroads are not my style. I have covered as much mileage on horseback as I have on trains! I have covered more mileage by automobile in the last four years than I have ever covered before, on land or sea, my Baltic, North Sea and Atlantic crossings included. So I will start in New Mexico.
Gallup is the typical frontier town, populated by Indians and Mexicans; its industries are mining and oil drilling. Possibly no town of its size consumes so much illegal liquor, and on the main street, every third doorway leads to a gaming house – with roulette wheel and faro tables complete. Had it not been for my Scottish songs and jokes, I surely would have starved in that hectic and iniquitous berg.
Soon I was following leads given to me by chance acquaintances, and later I managed to squeeze into a railroad construction outfit that was going to do some double-tracking in the SantaFe Valley. I was attached to the bridge gang, and was soon working with a bunch of six-foot, standard gauge Swedes - - - drilling hard rock with churn drills and sledge hammers and blasting for bridge foundations.
After I had survived that job for a while, I was promoted to the job of camp supply driver. In this capacity, I supplied four camps with everything from beef to dynamite and my rolling stock was an ancient Lizzie, disguised as a two-ton wagon. Nightmare of nightmares!! Bouncing over the sage brush where no roads existed, up and down old water-courses, over rocks enough to build a city, and right behind me, enough dynamite and black powder to blast a city. My aged “Chariot of Fire” had all the idiosyncrasies of its class¸and these, combined with the large area of virgin land I had to traverse daily caused me to carry my blankets with me. When night overtook me, I would walk fifty yards from the truck, build a fire and make myself comfortable in the manner of the Navajo Indians, who, for the most part were friendly and had shown me “how”. "
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