Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 11).djvu/56

 of instances on Braddock's Road plain evidence remains of these side-tracks. Judging then from this evidence, and from accounts which have come down to us, the introduction of the freighter with its heavier loads and narrower wheels turned the wide, deeply worn bridle-paths and cart tracks into far wider and far deeper courses. The corduroy road had a tendency to contract the route, but even here, where the ground was softest, it became desperate traveling. Where one wagon had gone, leaving great black ruts behind it, another wagon would pass with greater difficulty leaving behind it yet deeper and yet more treacherous tracks. Heavy rains would fill each cavity with water, making the road nothing less than what in Illinois was known as a "sloo." The next wagoner would, therefore, push his unwilling horses into a veritable slough, perhaps having explored it with a pole to see if there was a bottom to be found there. In some instances the bottoms "fell out," and many a reckless driver has lost his load in pushing heedlessly into a bottomless pit. In case a bottom could be found the driver