bile trails, as along the Lincoln High- 
way, National Old Trails, the Yellow- 
stone Highway, are generally better 
than those on the byroads, in the off- 
trail places. A garage that has only 
local trade is more apt to be indiffer- 
ent or incompetent on a strange car 
than is the garage on a main thor- 
oughfare. 
AM inclined to think that the 
garages in a city are apt to be 
fairer than those in small towns. 
My experience has been that if one 
pays more in a city, he gets more for 
his money—better, trimmer, snappier 

Photo by U.S. Forest Service 
signs on a highway are not always a 
criterion of garage honesty or ability, 
whatever the signs of progress. 
[ NDEED, when a big sign blocks a 
particularly beautiful scene the 
tourist impulse is never to patronize 
the outfit that defaces the landscape. 
In selling a garage, a man advised 
his successor always to look at a cus- 
tomer’s hands; “If they’re neat, clean 
and show signs of not being used to 
hard work, charge about a half more 
than you soak a man with rough and 
grimy workers’ hands.” The buyer of 
the garage replied, “I don’t do that, 
ing and accustomed eye will note the 
type of gasolene pump. Some pumps 
are notorious for  short-measuring. 
Others are of honest, unchangeable 
make. How short the gasolene pumps 
are in their measure depends on the dis- 
honesty of the garage. Some pumps 
are sold because the garage can fix 
them to be short a pint or a quart or 
even more per gallon of gasolene. 
i are also various grades of 
gasolene, and some regions obtain 
much better gas than other regions. 
Curiously enough, the motor adjusted 
for a poor quality gasolene may sputter 
Bitterroot National Forest, Hamilton, Montana—Tourists’ free public camp site 
work. I have found city garages to 
be more honest, too, as a class. That 
is, they play fair with the customer 
and do the work as represented, where 
in back places one finds the smart 
alecks who think it is cunning to put 
something over on one of those tour- 
ists, or a down easter, or a Yankee. 
F one takes pains to inquire about 
garages before going in to one or 
another, trouble is likely to be avoided. 
Before sending for the garage truck 
or service wagon, a few minutes talk 
with a passerby or with the man at 
the nearest farm telephone will be a 
safe-guard. The largest advertising 
Page 271 
because when a man works with his 
head, he’s apt to be smart enough to go 
to the garage that charges honest 
prices.” 
Slowly the dishonest garages are 
being put out of business. Tourists 
advertise good garages and warn 
against poor ones. One may save 
money going farther on a tow line to 
a good garage than by going to the 
nearest one, which may be a bad out- 
fit. Watchfulness along the highways, 
looking over garages as they appear, 
will after a time give the tourist a kind 
of second sight in the matter. 
The crooked garage may have all the 
earmarks of prosperity, but the discern- 
and flood, or have too rich a mixture 
when a good quality is struck. Motor 
oils are found in increasing shades and 
sorts of quality. A motor runs at its 
best on one or another kind. Stopping 
hit-or-miss at garages will deprive one 
of the advantages of having gasolene 
and oil according to one’s own machine. 
HE driver who does not know what 
is best for his own car cannot ob- 
tain as much out of it, either mileage 
or other service, as the man who al- 
ways demands what is best for his car. 
Having a certain oil of high grade for 
my car, I obtained two or three miles 
(Continued on page 303) 
