Despite the flats and overheating, the Dodge held out, which was a mercy because they had no money to fix it if it broke down. They spent two nights resting in a campground east of Boise and crossed into Oregon on May 22. Emaline felt a temporary elation in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon. The trees brought relief from the heat and the monotony of the bare, brown landscape. This was the Oregon that Alice Tatro had written about, tall trees and mountains to block the ceaseless wind that blew on the prairies. The drive from La Grande to Pendleton was as spectacular and nearly as difficult as their crossing over the Great Divide. Once again, Emaline was disappointed when the mountains slipped away and Pendleton turned out to be a cowboy town set amid bare, windswept hills, a landscape that could have been Wyoming or Montana or the Nebraska sandhills.

Jake talked to a man in a camp outside Pendleton who told him about a danceland bar outside town that hosted a boxing tournament on Saturday nights. It cost a dollar to enter, but the winner of each bout made three dollars and the champ at the end of the evening earned an extra ten. Jake rummaged around in the trailer until he found his old boxing gloves and shoes and trunks, unhooked the Dodge from the trailer, drove to the bar early on Saturday evening. He was back at midnight, tired and sore and with his left eye swollen shut from a head butt delivered by a brawny blacksmith, but he had won all six of his bouts and the championship bonus. He had come away with twenty-eight dollars. It was enough to keep them in food and gasoline the rest of the way.

37.