Of course it is always possible to race the engine, throw in the clutch, and gain some power from the momentum of the fly-wheel, and many a bad place may be surmounted step by step in this way; but this process has its limitations also, and the fact remains that with a gasoline machine it is possible to carry a given load only so fast, but if the machine moves it all, it will continue to move on until the load is increased, or the road changes for the worse.

When the farmer hears of an eight horse-power machine he thinks of the wonderful things eight good horses can do on the road, and is surprised when the machine fails to go up hills that teams travel every day; he does not understand it, and wonders where the power comes in.  He is not enough of a mechanic to reflect that the eight horse-power is demonstrated in the carrying of a ton over average roads one hundred and fifty miles in ten hours, something eight horses could not possibly do.

Just as we were entering the valley of Lebanon, beyond the village of Brainerd, while going down a slight descent, my Companion exclaimed,—­

“The wheel is coming off.”  I threw out the clutch, applied the brake, looked, and saw the left front wheel roll gracefully and quite deliberately out from under the big metal mud guard; the carriage settled down at that corner, and the end of the axle ploughed a furrow in the road for a few feet, when we came to a stop.

The steering-head had broken short off at the inside of the hub.  We were not going very fast at the time, and the heavy metal mud guard which caught the wheel, acting as a huge brake, saved us from a bad smash.

On examination, the shank of the steering-head was found to contain two large flaws, which reduced its strength more than one-half, and the surprising thing was that it had not parted long before, when subjected to much severer strains.

This was a break that no man could repair on the road.  Under pressure of circumstances the steering-head could have been taken to the nearest blacksmith shop and a weld made, but that would require time, and the results would be more than doubtful.  By far the easier thing to do was to wire the factory for a new head and patiently wait its coming.

Happily, we landed in the hands of a retired farmer, whose generous hospitality embraced our tired selves as well as the machine.

Before supper a telegram was sent from Brainerd to the factory for a new steering-head.

While waiting inside for the operator to finish selling tickets for the one evening train about to arrive, a curious crowd gathered outside about my host, and the questions asked were plainly audible; the names are fictitious.

“What’r ye down t’ the stashun fur this hur o’ day, Joe?”

“Broke my new aut’mobile,” carelessly replied my host, flicking a fly off the nigh side of his horse.

“Shu!”

“What’r given us?”