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Pedal and Path: Across the Continent Awheel and Afoot

by George B. Thayer · English · Gutenberg #49474 · 437,643 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Pedal and Path: Across the Continent Awheel and Afoot

Author: George B. Thayer


        
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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEDAL AND PATH: ACROSS THE CONTINENT AWHEEL AND AFOOT ***

                             PEDAL AND PATH
                          Across the Continent
                           AWHEEL AND AFOOT,



                           GEORGE B. THAYER.
               [Member of the Connecticut Bicycle Club,]



                               HARTFORD:
                       Evening Post Association.
                                 1887.








PREFACE.


Close confinement to mercantile business for a dozen or more years
brought on a feeling of discontent with the monotonous routine,
that I at length tried to drive away by taking a little recreation
on a bicycle. The machine, I found, was not only a source of great
enjoyment, but it soon became a thing of practical value to me in the
transaction of business. I took intense delight in riding the wheel
a dozen miles to Hartford buying goods, quite content to let those
who would sit inertly riding by me in the cars, and it was not long
before the idea of taking a short vacation presented itself.

A vacation of more than a day was a pleasure of which I had denied
myself for so many years that it was a question with me whether the sun
would not stand still if I ventured out of the little orbit in which
I had moved so many years. But I finally decided to run the risk. At
the end of five days, after riding one hundred and seventy-five miles,
I came back more than ever pleased with the mode of locomotion and its
advantages in sight-seeing. So intense had become my desire to travel,
to visit the places of interest here at home, that I then made business
arrangements which would permit a more prolonged absence, and took a
three weeks' trip of five hundred miles, and soon after a six weeks'
trip of one thousand two hundred miles through the most interesting
parts of New England.

Instead of quieting my rising passion for sight-seeing, these
delightful journeys only added fuel to the flames. They showed clearly
to me the possibilities of a trip to California, the independence and
economy possible to such a trip, and the good results to be obtained
from such a mode of traveling in preference to any other. So with no
desire or intention of making or breaking any records, or covering the
whole distance on the wheel, the trip was started and carried out with
the sole object of taking all the pleasure possible and of acquiring a
knowledge of the country and the people who live in it. An account of
the trip across the continent was written in occasional letters to the
Hartford Evening Post, as whose representative I was everywhere most
courteously received. Although this little volume is to all purposes
a binding of those letters, with considerable revision, in book form,
I have been able when seated quietly at my own desk to give fuller
details at certain interesting points, and to round out a narrative
which was sometimes rather meagre from having been written out in the
fields to escape too curious observation of passers-by, in a friendly
barn which sheltered me from the rain, on jolting freight-trains,
in the cloud-enveloped house on Pike's Peak, on one of the dizziest
points overhanging the Yosemite, on a tossing steamer on the misnamed
Pacific, and while waiting for the regular spouting of "Old Faithful"
in the Yellowstone, as well as in many other situations not conducive
to the production of comprehensive and artistic literary work.

To the wheelmen of the country, Greetings! The fraternal feeling
everywhere manifested between them has, I believe, not a parallel in
any social or secret order. To their spontaneous and unfailing kindness
was due much of the pleasure of the trip, and if any wheelman should
want a more detailed account than I have given, of any portion of
the route taken, I should be only too glad to furnish him with all
the information I possess.


G. B. T.








CHAPTER I.

WESTWARD HO! THE BEGINNING OF A SEVEN MONTHS'
WHEELING TOUR ACROSS THE CONTINENT.


For this trip, which covered a distance of 11,000 miles from Hartford,
Connecticut, circuitously to San Francisco, California, and return,
nearly 4,300 of which was made upon the machine, a forty-six inch
Expert Columbia, taking me across twenty-three States and Territories,
and through hundreds of the finest cities and towns in the Union, and
some of the most magnificent scenery in the world, I was equipped with
a blue cap that I wore throughout the whole journey with comfort,
brown blouse, thin undershirt, brown corduroy knickerbockers,
brown stockings, and low canvas shoes. The baggage in the knapsack
consisted of a coat, blouse, pair blue knickerbockers, three summer
undershirts, night-shirt, six pairs stockings, six handkerchiefs,
needles and thread, buttons, and plenty of stout string, a box of
salve, a bottle of tannin and alcohol, a bottle of Jamaica ginger,
razor, shaving brush, hair brush, tooth-brush, shaving soap, toilet
soap, leather strap with wire hook at one end, a sponge, long rubber
tube for drinking, knife and fork, shoe laces, piece of cement,
box matches, a candle, coil of pliable wire, two dozen pedal-balls,
pedal shaft, chain and Yale lock, pocket mirror, railroad maps, and a
good supply of stationery and postal cards. On top of the knapsack was
strapped a gossamer coat, gossamer leggings, rubber cap, and a pair of
rubber overshoes. The whole weighed a little over fifteen pounds. It
will be observed that among the articles enumerated no mention has
been made of any weapon of defense. Although implored by some of
my friends not to enter upon the Western wilds without a pistol,
I decided to maintain my habitual faith in the honesty and good will
of the average American and to depend upon diplomacy and conciliation
in the circumvention of the exceptional villain. I expressed a valise
along to different cities as far as Denver, but found I could carry
all necessary clothing in the knapsack, and so left the valise at that
place till my return from California, when I sent it directly home.

After anxiously waiting for the frost to be taken out of the ground
by a warm rain that finally came, I started out on the 10th of April,
1886. The roads to Berlin were full of hard, dry ruts, and through
Wallingford sandy as usual. This, in addition to the fifteen pounds
of baggage in my knapsack, the soft condition of my muscles, the
thirty mile ride the day before,--first one in four months,--these
circumstances, taken together, had the effect to make me somewhat
weary, and after reaching New Haven, and completing over fifty miles
that day, I was tired. Those wheelmen who envied me the trip in the
morning would have changed their feeling to pity had they seen me
groping along in the dark from North Haven nearly fagged out. The
next day, Sunday, was certainly a day of rest, but Monday I rode up
the gentle grade of the Farnham drive to the top of East Rock in the
morning, and in the afternoon about the city with a Yale student,
Mr. Geo. Kimball of Hartford,--a fine rider, who struck a gait
that outwinded me and that would have used him up in a day or two,
I think. For variety, I spent a couple of hours looking over the
fine specimens of ancient life in Peabody museum, and afterwards
made the acquaintance of Messrs. Thomas and Robbins of the New Haven
Club. Tuesday, a drizzling rain prevented a start till nearly noon,
and the ride around Savin Rock to Milford was anything but enjoyable,
especially when wearing a rubber suit which retained the perspiration
like a hot house, which it really was for me. It was the bitter
with the sweet, and the bitter came first, for the roads improved
to Stratford and Bridgeport, at which latter place the open-hearted
J. Wilkinson, a dealer in bicycles, accompanied me through the city
and on to Fairfield, showing his nationality by characterizing places
in the road as "beastly." A decided fall in the temperature was now
followed by a thunder storm which drove me under shelter for the
night at Green Farms.

Inquiries for a wheelman at South Norwalk, the next morning, brought
out in reply, "There is a man down at the carriage-shop, beyant, that
could fix your fhweel, I guess"; but not looking for that kind of a
wheelman, I soon found one, Mr. Chas. Warren, who piloted me along
to Stamford, where I had a pleasant chat with William A. Hurlburt,
the well known State representative. At Greenwich I met three riders,
two of whom it was plain to be seen by the dusty condition of one side
of their suits had taken recent tumbles. One was Consul E. W. Reynolds,
another Dr. E. N. Judd, vice-president of the Greenwich Club, and I
did not learn the name of the third. So with this unknown quantity it
is safe to leave the reader to ponder over which two of the three took
headers, for I could not be so base as to give a clue to the names of
the unfortunate ones, all three of whom were very fine gentlemen. Other
wheelmen soon came up, meat carts and express teams stopped on the
corner, small boys gathered around, and innumerable dogs filled in
the chinks, till fearing the knapsack would soon be arrested for
obstructing the highway, I reluctantly dragged it away and carried
it along to Port Chester, where, with a parting look at the Sound, I
started across the country to White Plains and to Tarrytown. The roads
improved all the forenoon, and from the Sound to the river were very
good. It was nearly dark at Tarrytown, but having some acquaintance
with the accommodating landlord at the American House, Sing Sing, I
kept on by the monument that marks the spot of Major Andre's capture,
down into "Sleepy Hollow," made memorable by Washington Irving,
and up to the Old Dutch Church, built in 1699. With a mania which
I shall never entirely outgrow, for finding the oldest dates in a
grave-yard, I opened the creaking iron gate, and walked in among the
tipsy tombstones, and, with the scanty aid of the twilight and the
full moon, found many dates nearly as old as the church itself. The
iron latch snapped back into place with a remarkably loud click, it
seemed to me, as I came out, for everything was wonderfully still,
even for a grave-yard, and as I went slowly on through the woods,
meeting Italian organ-grinders, passing bands of gypsies camped out by
the roadside, and coasting silently down unknown hills in the dark,
I really think I must have looked like a genuine goblin astride of
a silver broomstick. But there was a novelty about it that I rather
enjoyed.








CHAPTER II.

THROUGH THE HIGHLANDS OF THE HUDSON RIVER.


Soon after leaving Port Chester, frequent explosions attracted my
attention, and when within two miles of Tarrytown I came to a cluster
of cheap shanties out in the woods, and found that it was the location
of Shaft No. 11 of the new aqueduct for New York city. This shaft was
only sixty feet deep, and as dump cars of rocks were constantly coming
up, and empty cars going down, I thought it would be a fine thing to
go down into the bowels of the earth. But no amount of entreaty, no
amount of newspaper influence behind me would induce the foreman to
give his consent without a permit from headquarters, so I rode over
to Tarrytown, hunted the city all over, and finally got the coveted
piece of paper from D. D. McBeau, the superintendent. I laid awake
half the night thinking of the grand chance before me, and started
off next morning from Sing Sing to Shaft One, eight miles directly
out of my way, over a hilly and muddy country. Here were more cheap
shanties off in the mountains and crowds of negroes and Italians
loafing around in the woods, waiting for their turn to go down to
work. Rum-holes were numerous and doing a thriving business. The
powder and oil clerk gave me an old coat and a pair of rubber boots
to put on, and when the empty car was ready I crawled over into it
and boldly stood up in the mud beside an Italian, who grinned and
said something I could not understand. While waiting for the bell
to ring I found this hole was 360 feet deep instead of sixty. That
information caused me to look over the side of the car down into the
dark where the loaded car comes up--the cars go up and down like the
buckets in a well--and try to imagine how far down a fellow would
go. If anything should break I did not suppose it would jar me much
more to drop 360 feet than it would sixty, but it was the uneasy
feeling falling during the longer interval that I began to believe I
would avoid. What would happen afterwards I never thought of, but it
was the long time going down so far before anything could happen that
troubled me. I did not want to run the risk of waiting so long. Then I
began to think of what they told me before I got into the car, how the
day before the cable slipped, a wheel or something dropped--I did not
mind much what they said I was so intent on getting into that car--and
how the brains of the man beneath were scooped up into a cigar-box
and taken away, and how twelve men were sitting on that cigar-box,
or all there was of the man's body below his shirt collar, at the same
time I was hanging over that black hole. I did not object so much to
being carried away in a cigar-box, or being sat upon afterwards, but
somehow I did not think it such a big thing to go down after all. I
began to imagine how it looked down there, and the more the workmen
urged me the less I wanted to go. It wouldn't pay anyhow. I could
just as well imagine how it looked and not go. All this time if the
bell had rung I should have had no choice, but I finally crawled out,
just in time, feeling very foolish, and returned the coat and boots
unsoiled. A mile farther I came to Croton dam and the head of the new
aqueduct. I may use that hard earned and once highly prized piece of
paper some other time when I feel more like it. A brief description
of this great work may not be uninteresting.

The present aqueduct runs near the Hudson River, but the rich property
holders along its course would combine to effectually prevent another
aqueduct from boring its way through their fine grounds, so the only
thing to be done was to go back five or six miles into the mountains
and tunnel the whole distance of thirty-five or forty miles. The
head of the two aqueducts are close together, but whereas the old
one winds along the banks of the Hudson on the surface, the new one
takes a straight course from New York, the first nine miles being
a bee line. Every mile or two holes are dug down into the mountain,
these shafts varying from 50 to 400 feet in depth, and then tunnels are
started out in opposite directions till they meet those being dug from
the next shaft. This tunnel goes through solid rock, under swamps and
ponds, through mountains, and finally passes under the Harlem River,
eighty feet beneath its bed, into the city. Think of a hole eighteen or
twenty feet in diameter being dug as far below the surface of the earth
as the Genius of Connecticut on the dome of the Capitol at Hartford is
above it; this hole going from Hartford down under the Meriden hills
and coming out at New Haven. How do those railroad tunnels through the
Alps compare with this? There are about twenty-five of these shafts,
and six or seven hundred men are constantly working, day and night,
down in the bowels of the earth. The tunnels are lighted by the
Schuyler Electric Light Company of Hartford. The average fall to New
York is eight inches to the mile, and the water will not run much
faster than a mile an hour. I have probably ridden over this tunnel
half a dozen times during the past two days, and every farmer along
its course for twenty-five miles knows about how far underneath him
these men are working. Frequently an explosion that shakes buildings
five miles away reminded me of what was going on.

Asking of a good woman to-day how much the bread and milk I had of
her would be, she replied, "Five or ten cents if thee is able to pay."

After a few minutes pleasant talk at Peekskill with Chief Consul
E. F. Hall, a slight built, dark complexioned gentleman of, perhaps,
30, wearing glasses, I hired a boatman and crossed the river, a
mile and a half wide at this place, to Jones's Point. This was done
partly to avoid the sandy roads running far east from the river to
Garrison's, but principally to get a better view of the entrance to
the Highlands. The sun was only half an hour high, but I loitered
along, never thinking of the night. The road which winds along the
side of the mountain was too stony to ride; but who would want his
attention diverted by riding when there was such grand scenery on
all sides? The West Shore trains were rushing up and down along the
river fifty feet almost perpendicularly below me, the Hudson River
trains on the opposite side were just as busy, and the sun brought
out the features of Anthony's nose with great distinctness as it rose
nearly 1,500 feet straight up from the east bank of the river. The
sun went down some time before I began to wonder if any farmers
lived along that rugged region, for not a house was in sight for
miles, but hearing some one chopping upon the side of the mountain
somewhere, I pushed my machine up a cow-path till my wind was all
gone, and found there was a house half a mile farther on. Coming to
the barn, in front of which a good looking woman of 30 was milking,
I told her how I hoped to reach West Point that night, but the rough
roads delayed me, and could I stay over night? The husband was inside,
she said, and seeing some one in there in the dark I retold my story,
only to find out I was talking to the hired man. Finally the husband,
who was in a box stall milking, came out and said "yes" without more
ado. The house was close to the river, and soon after supper was
over, and we were all sitting in the dining-room talking, a knock was
heard. The man of the house said "Come in," but no one came. Soon
the knock was repeated, with the same answer, and finally the door
slowly opened and a small, dried up, middle-aged man came shuffling
in, blinking and muttering "Is John here?" But John was not there; so
Walter sat down by the stove and immediately fell into a deep reverie,
occasionally arousing himself to inquire for John. Finally John came
in, and then it seems Walter wanted to be taken home in John's boat,
up the river about a mile. So John said, good naturedly, "Come out and
get in then," and walked across the gang-plank, out to where the boat
was moored. Walter started out into the bright moonlight, going very
unsteadily, and reached the gang-plank without any serious trouble,
but here he slowed up. The women-folks said "Help him across, John,"
but Walter started, very cautiously, without waiting for help, and had
got half way across when he stepped off into the air and went down
out of sight with a splash. John was so tickled he laid down in the
boat and roared, and when Walter came up, bareheaded and looking very
sleek, John couldn't stop laughing long enough to help him, leaving
him hanging there by the gang-plank in the water up to his neck,
sputtering, "Zis the river John, zis the river?" But poor Walter was
soon helped out, wrapped up in blankets, and taken home in the boat.

The ride next morning of five or six miles to West Point was over a
road that would compare favorably with the best city roads, and after
spending an hour about the grounds, seeing all the captured Mexican
cannons, and wondering where the captured cannons of the war of 1812
were--I guess that was not a very good war for capturing cannons--I
crossed to Garrison's and found a road that for fifty miles, and
probably farther, is as fine as there is anywhere about Boston. The
grades are easy, the coasting so perfect I almost forgot there was
a brake on the machine. For miles and miles fine rows of elms and
maples line the sides of the road. To say I enjoyed it seems tame. At
Cold Spring I explained the workings of the cyclometer to a gentleman,
and opposite the "Cro' Nest," meeting the same one again, he returned
the favor by showing me the situation of the Storm King Bridge, that
is soon to be built. It is at the northern entrance to the Highlands
and at one of the wildest parts of the whole river. On both sides are
high mountains with bold fronts, the one on the east jutting out into
the river. Around this projection there is just room enough for one
team to pass between the rocks and the river, the railroad tunneling
through the rocks at this point. It is to be a cantilever bridge,
and, if I understand it, is to be built nearly a mile in length and
upon four or five piers. These iron piers are raised to the height
of nearly 250 feet above the river, but how deep the river is at this
point I did not learn. At other points it is 200 feet and over. When
these piers are at the required height an arm or span is built out
in one direction and another of equal length in the other direction,
and so on till the spans meet in the center between the piers. It
is like building four or five immense capital T's and extending the
arms out till they meet. Imagine those men up in the air 250 feet,
and working out on the end of one of those immense spans 500 feet
from the center of the pier. At Po'keepsie I found quite a nest of
wheelmen at the office of the Buckeye shops, a policeman escorting
me to the place to the evident delight of all the small boys,
who thought I was under arrest. Representative Adriance is a tall,
sandy complexioned gentleman of 35 or 40, with a full beard, and
Captain Edward A. King is dark complexioned and smooth, full faced,
and under 25. Both of these gentlemen treated me very cordially, as did
others there, and I would be glad to be walked off by a policeman any
time to meet such fine fellows in a strange city. Saturday morning,
after crossing from Rhinecliff to Kingston and traveling twelve
miles over some sandy roads that would have been impassable but for a
fair side-path, I found, upon reaching Saugerties, that I had made a
mistake by not going up the east side and crossing to the same point,
but forgot all about it as the terraced Catskills came in view. At
Palenville the hard work commenced, pushing the machine to the top,
and, after two hours of sweating and puffing, I arrived. Since a boy I
had been told there was plenty of room at the top, and so I found it,
1,200 of them, all empty. Notwithstanding that fact, I was obliged to
take an apartment on the first floor front, that is, the piazza. The
board was very plain, too. The one under me was not only planed but
painted. I did not stay long.

Distance traveled in six days, 251 miles.








CHAPTER III.

UP THE CATSKILLS AND ALONG THE ERIE CANAL.


Now that the trees are bare, the terraced appearance of the Catskills
is plainly visible, and in climbing up by the new mountain road to the
Hotel Kaaterskill, along the northern slope of the Kaaterskill Clove,
one wonders at first why the numerous little houses scattered all along
up this Clove are not in danger of the catastrophe that befell the
Willey House in Crawford Notch, New Hampshire. The sides of the Clove
are as steep as the Notch, although not as high, but the rock formation
of the Catskills preserves these little hamlets. A landslide here would
have to go down a gigantic pair of stairs, while in the White Mountains
it would be like slipping off a gothic roof. Half an hour's rest was
sufficient after the tough climb of four miles up the gentle grade,
as they called it, of the new road. It was very steep all the way up,
and at places very dangerous, a single wire holding up a row of posts
which themselves seemed bent on going over, being the only protection
against a fall of fifty feet or more. I reached the falls in the rear
of the Laurel House just as the western sun was filling the Clove with
rainbows, and after convincing myself with some difficulty that the
whole mountain would not tip over if I stepped too heavy, I crawled
around the amphitheater, little by little, till the water came down
directly between the stairs and myself. The ice all around the pool
rose up very much like the crater of a volcano, down into the center
of which the water plunged from 150 feet above. While I was creeping
along backside of this ice crater there was a loud crack, loud enough
to be heard above all the other noises, and my feet went down about
three inches. A thin shale of ice under my feet had broken, that was
all, but my heart came up as my feet went down, and it remained about
six inches above its ordinary level for some time.

That night the lively conversation, accompanied by sly winks, and
short little words of the gouty but genial proprietor, J. L. Schult,
helped to make the evening pass pleasantly, especially when Mr. Schult,
of Dutch descent himself, would slyly refer to the Yankee origin of
his wife, a quiet, kind lady of Connecticut parents.

Sunday morning came off delightfully clear and cool, and after a ride
of a couple of miles by the railroad station and the lake, on one side
of which the ice still covered the surface while on the other side
buds on the trees were bursting, I reached the Mountain House and
sat down for a few minutes, but wishing to be alone crossed over to
the Pine Orchard Hotel. A few steps farther brought me to the Beach
House where, avoiding contact with people when Nature had so much to
say to me, I sat down under the shade of the Catskill Mountain House,
and for four hours was undisturbed as I lay there taking in the fine
view of the Hudson, the finest, I think, to be had from any of the
mountain hotels. If any one is puzzled to account for so many hotels
in this section of the mountains, he is no more confused than I was
when I had the same building pointed out to me at different times as
the Mountain House, the Pine Orchard Hotel, the Beach House, and the
Catskill Mountain House, but like the various officers which centered
in Pooh-Bah they are all one.

Celebrated as the Catskills are, Connecticut can boast of some hills
that out-rank them in one respect, and that is age. The Litchfield
Hills in plain sight across the river are not only the tallest in
the State but they claim to be about as old as the Adirondacks. The
river Saguenay has worn a wrinkle 1,500 feet deep down the face of
some rocks of the same age. But the Connecticut hills don't show
their age like that, old as they are. They were well along in their
youth when the rocks were born over which flow the waters of Niagara,
and the White Mountains, now both bald and grey, had then not even
been thought of. They were in the meridian of life when the Rockies
came upon the stage, and had passed that point long before the Alps,
Pyrennes, Himalayas, and the rocks of which the pyramids are built,
had risen above the surface of the ocean. So their real grandeur
consists, certainly not in their size, but in the fact that the group
of mountains to which they belong, the Laurentian range, as well as
the Adirondacks, has remained above the sea level longer than any
other land upon the face of the globe. Not once during this time have
they ever bowed to the god of the sea. They are not so pretentious
as some of their richer and more lofty followers, but in their ripe
old age the Litchfield Hills have acquired a weather-beaten and a
most enviable title to the first families of creation.

I understood from a wheelman that the coasting down the other side
of the mountains toward Catskill was fine, and to enjoy that was my
idea in working so hard to get the machine up, but the road was too
steep and rough and so all the labor was lost. Crossing the river
again at Catskill I rode on to Hudson by moonlight, and the next
day kept on, over mostly fine roads, through Kinderhook, where some
writers claim the identical "Sleepy Hollow" of Washington Irving is
located, to Albany. Washing off some of the dust and dirt I put on
a coat and went up to the capitol. Finding I was a stranger those
in charge furnished a guide, who took me all over the magnificent
structure. To give an idea of the cost of the interior decorations,
it will be enough to state that one side of the senate chamber is
covered with slabs of Mexican onyx, the cost of this room alone
amounting to over one million dollars. On the way out of the city I
stopped at the Albany Bicycle Club House, a large two story building,
situated on a prominent corner, with a fine lawn in front. The house
is nicely furnished, with all conveniences, but the club has of late
become more of a social than an athletic club. At Schenectady the
only glimpse I had of Jacob W. Clute, the active wheelman of this
thriving city, was through the cracks of the court-room door as
he was cross-examining a witness, but S. R. James, who has a large
crockery establishment here, mounted his tricycle and piloted me along
the sidewalks to the tow path. Mr. James has been at different times
president and captain of their club, and is a good-sized man of sixty,
with side whiskers and moustache.

On the tow-path, at last. A path nearly 300 miles long and perfectly
level for forty, fifty, and sixty miles on a stretch. How I looked
forward to it. How I longed to get to it. How I thought the hard work
was over when I reached it. What fun it would be to ride for hours
without a dismount; what time I could make. This and a great deal more
I had thought about, read of, and talked over. The great tow-path,
the bicyclers' paradise! Now I was there. Well, to state facts, it
is no path at all, it is a common highway, and a very common one too,
for everybody uses it. The soil is a mixture of clay and coarse, very
coarse, gravel. Round, loose stones filled the ruts and every part of
the road. The inside edge of the bank is cobbled and the outside edge
full of little cross ditches. Now, where was a wheel to go? Go in the
middle and the wheel would take a serpentine course; try to follow a
rut and the loose stones would throw the wheel in and out. The outside
edge was terribly jolting, the inside edge dangerous, for a variation
of an inch or two and the course of the wheel would throw a rider
into the mud and water ten feet below in the empty canal. But for all
that I tried the celebrated tow-path for ten, twenty, thirty miles,
and long miles, too. After bumping along for a mile or two I would
get off and walk. Then pound along for two or three miles farther
and dismount again, more to prevent the saddle from becoming ruined
than anything else, for even a Kirkpatrick's saddle couldn't stand
everything. Water is as necessary to a wheelman as to a locomotive,
and yet there was none to be had excepting at the lock-houses several
miles apart and then only in a well, down in some warm swamp; no
gushing little streams of sparkling, cool water, such as spring out
of the rocks and hills all along the regular highways. The only shade
was under the bridges that cross the canal at frequent intervals,
where a rider can sit down in the dirt and think how nice it might
be on the grass beneath the shade of a pine tree. No matter what part
of the road you took it required the strictest attention to business,
and after following a rut with every muscle hard and every nerve taut
for an hour or two, it became monotonous, to say the least.

The canal follows the south side of the Mohawk River and passes
through very few villages, while on the other side of the river are
many places, through each of which there must be a mile or two of
nice riding, yet I stuck to the canal on principle for six long hours,
and left it at Fonda for good. It may be, when the boats are running,
that the mules' kicking abilities are employed, when they slack rope,
in firing the million of round stones out of the road, and in that
way make the tow-path rideable, but if every mule on the line of the
canal had kicked me, personally and individually, with all four feet
and all on the same spot, I should not have been any sorer than I was
that night. The next day fifty-six miles were made with less labor and
decidedly more pleasure over the common roads than was the forty-five
miles the day before, and if the tow path was the only way to Buffalo,
the next train home would have had me for a passenger. All the way
to Syracuse the tow-path, from what I could see in crossing it, is
very much the same rough riding, and whenever anyone advised me to
take it to a certain place I writhed with pain at the very idea.

At Little Falls the West Shore double tracks, the canal, the river,
the four tracks of the New York Central, and the highway are all
brought into close proximity by the perpendicular ledges of rocks on
both sides of the valley, and the rocks along the highway and in the
river are worn and scooped out by action of the elements, very much
as they are at Diana's Baths, near North Conway. It is no uncommon
occurrence on the Central road to see a passenger train chasing and
overtaking a freight train, while a third train will scoot in between
the two, with a fourth train close on to them. There is nothing dull
about a trip up the Mohawk valley, even alone on a bicycle.

It is the general opinion that the mud this spring has been the
deepest of any for many years, some say twenty-five years; and often
I ride over places, now dry and dusty on the surface, that bend and
crack like thin ice. A wagon laid up beside the road, with a wheel
wrenched off by the deep hard ruts, or a place where rails and boards
have been used to extricate a mired horse, are sights of almost daily
occurrence. Once I passed a hole in the road where a fine pair of
draft horses were ruined. A week sooner and the roads would have been
impassable for a bicycle. Even now the ruts prevent any very fast
riding. The road scraper has only been used in a very few places,
and as the roads have become more dry and dusty the small wheel has
become more independent, going off to one side on little excursions of
its own, to the natural disconcertment of its rider. After traveling
over 400 miles I have had no tumbles, but as I was following a narrow
ridge between two ruts, a fly, about as large as the head of a pin,
flew into my eye, immediately enlarged itself to the size of a barn,
and the next instant I was in the dust. It takes the weak things of
this world to confound the bicyclist. The religious crank who has
painted the stones and rocks of Connecticut with warnings in regard to
the future life has been using the same means of conversion all over
York State, and in many places he has taken advantage of alarming
situations to enforce his arguments. For instance, in the Highlands
below West Point is a deep ravine, down the sides of which the road
winds and crosses a bridge nearly 100 feet above the river, on which
is posted a sign "dangerous." The bridge totters under my feet,
and right here, painted in staring blue letters are these words:
"Prepare to meet thy God," and "Repent now or you will go to hell."

The knapsack attracts considerable attention along the route,
especially from the dogs. Some only give a single low grunt,
while others of more sound than sense follow it for a quarter of a
mile or more; but every dog has something to say in regard to the
trip. Coasting down into Peekskill the knapsack was accompanied by
seven (actual count) dogs of various sizes and colors, some turning
hand springs, others whirling around within a very small circle, and
all performing some sort of gymnastic evolutions in front, on the side
of, or behind the knapsack, and each one displaying his vocal powers to
the best of his ability. Sometimes a dog of light weight and wit will
chew away at my canvas shoes while they are revolving on the pedal,
and another will tug away at my stocking while I drink at a well,
but constant exposure has so toughened my sensibilities that I can
walk along with the cold nose of a savage bull dog bumping against
the calves of my legs without a shudder.

Going from Ilion to Frankfort I had a lively brush with a horse car,
the highway and track running side by side, of such uncertain result
that the passengers became as interested in the race as the driver
himself. When passengers took or left the car the stops would give me
the lead, but then the driver would run his horse and leave me behind,
for the road was not the best, but I finally left them behind for good.

At Utica I met a dozen or more of the members of the bicycle club at
their rooms during the evening. The members are mostly young men and
nearly all riders, and bicycling has certainly taken a firm hold at
this place. Messrs. Arthur J. Lux and F. E. Manchaw were especially
friendly to me. But at Syracuse, where I stopped the next night,
the atmosphere is very different. With equally good roads, a larger
population, with club rooms, rent free, in the Y. M. C. A. building,
a beautiful structure in a city of fine buildings, with all things
seemingly favorable, the club hardly numbers a dozen lifeless
members. Will. H. Olmstead, the first bicycle rider in Syracuse,
a middle aged gentleman with a full black beard, kindly assisted me
with information. For six miles out of Utica the sidewalk is without a
single gutter to oblige a dismount, and at Syracuse there seems to be
the same regard for the personal comfort of bicyclists. That day I met
the first unpleasant treatment at a farm-house. Stopping for something
to eat, the farmer, who was coming in from the barn to dinner, said
rather sharply, "What do you do for a living." I told him what I was
doing. "Why don't you go to work and earn your dinner," said he. That
"riled" me a little, but I only said I expected to pay for what I had,
and had intimated nothing to the contrary. He softened perceptibly, and
as the savory smell wafted from the kitchen had increased my ravenous
appetite, I jingled the few coins in my pocket in retaliation, till
the crabbed old man actually smiled and invited me in, as cordially
as it was possible for one of his disposition to do. Then disliking
to beg and buy both I said so, and went a few rods to the next house,
where I could not force any money on the good woman for the bountiful
meal I had there.

I stopped for a meal at a way-side hotel, when, upon leaving, the
German proprietor, knowing of the intended length of my trip, said,
"Hold on one minute," and he ran back into the house. Returning
directly with a small business card three or four inches square, on
the back of which was a railroad map of the United States, in which
the State of Connecticut did not appear larger than the end of a lead
pencil, he said, "There, now, you go 'long, and when you come to a
road you just take out your map and there you are. You will have to
ask no questions. I am glad I thought of it." Thanking him, I went on.

Passing through places with such familiar names as New Hartford and
Vernon, by houses--built of small cobble-stones, the size of an egg,
laid in cement in rows like bricks, and arched over the doors and
windows, making a very pretty appearance--by cheese factories with the
accusing question painted in large black letters on a board nailed to
the whey tank, "Who Steals the Whey?" (every farmer helps himself to
enough whey to pay for the milk he brings, and it looks as if some
helped themselves to a little more), by acres of hop-poles already
stuck, by droves of mules all tied together, with an immense draft
horse leading them along and another bringing up the rear: genuine
horse guards, that trudged along past the bicycle without so much as
deigning to look at it, while the captive mules, the tow-path mules,
shied out at it; through Oneida Castle and through Auburn, where a
minstrel brass band marching through the streets and a knapsack and
bicycle going down the sidewalk gave the small boys and big ones, too,
for that matter, altogether too much to attend to just at dinner-time,
I finally came to the lake at Cayuga. Here a pleasant ride of half
an hour across the lake in a row boat made a very agreeable change
from the hot, dusty riding of the last three or four days, and then
on to Geneva for the night. Next morning a cold rain drove me into a
barn and finally into the farmer's house where I surprised the ancient
granger in the act of making up his weekly letter to an agricultural
journal. Here ends the second week of the trip.

Distance traveled during the week 288 miles; distance from starting
point 557 miles.








CHAPTER IV.

AT NIAGARA AND ALONG LAKE ERIE.


At Canandaigua I had a short interview with Doctor A. G. Coleman. He
is short and rather thick set, with gray hair and full beard. His
conversation was very entertaining; his bicycling experience in Denver
and California naturally interesting me very much.

The artificial hatching of trout at Mumford, New York, is a sight
that is well worth a journey, even from a long distance. The ground
occupied is small, only two or three acres, and the building in which
the hatching is done is only the size of an ordinary barn, but there is
an immense amount of interest concentrated in this small area. There
are a dozen or fifteen small ponds, perhaps ten feet square, boarded
up on the sides, in which are the various kinds of trout from a year
to twelve or fifteen years of age. Brook salmon, California brook,
and German trout are the principal kinds raised here. I laid down on
a plank that crosses one of the ponds, where the water comes pouring
into it, and put my hand down into the water. Probably five hundred
of these speckled beauties, the common brook trout, varying from one
to two pounds in weight, were struggling to get through the wooden
grates into the water above, and they wriggled and twisted through my
fingers and bit the flesh as if they resented the interference, but
otherwise paid no attention to it. Many would even allow me to take
them out and hold them for a few seconds. The water was actually solid
with fish, for there were over 3,000 of them in this one pond. Lying
on the grass beside another pond in which were some fine specimens of
salmon trout, there were within a foot of my hand trout varying from
a foot to two feet and a half or three feet in length and weighing
from five to eighteen pounds, all lying perfectly still on the bottom,
too lazy to stir. Then I went into the building where Jim--everybody
knows Jim after one visit--told me how they propagate and care for
the millions of tiny things, even selecting individual cases for
special care. Half a dozen men were here picking out the poor eggs
and doing different kinds of work. The eggs are about half as large
as a lead pencil in diameter, and the poor ones are white, the others
colorless. In one of the many shallow troughs in the building through
which water is constantly running were thousands of eggs spread out
just ready to hatch. When they break through the shell the little
fish are scarcely longer than the egg itself, which remains attached
to them and is finally absorbed. Millions of these eggs, as well as
millions of these little trout not an inch long, are annually shipped
to all parts of the country. Seth Green came in, and a few minutes'
chat with the jovial, gray bearded, two hundred and fifty pound man
would make anyone wish to come again and know him better. Then I
went out to see them take the spawn. During the spawning season the
trout run up a long covered sluiceway at the head of each pond, and a
net placed at the lower end of this covered brook catches every fish
in it after the boards are removed and the trout driven down with a
pole. The men hauled out about a bushel and a half at the first pond
and about two bushels at the second, and emptied them into tubs filled
with water. The females were parted from the males,--they separated
them much faster than a farmer could sort rotting apples--and then
the females were taken out by the men on their knees and squeezed dry
of every egg in them. Occasionally a few drops of milk were pressed
from a male into the pan with eggs to fecundate them, which occurred
in a few seconds, and the males were thrown back into the pond, the
female being put into a separate pond and tenderly cared for. Thus,
in about fifteen minutes 50,000 eggs, or about three quarts, were
obtained, and this process is carried out every day during the
season. The female brook trout only live to be five or six years old,
such necessarily rough handling naturally shortening their lives, and
the males are turned loose down the stream after about the same age,
but the salmon trout attain the age of fifteen or eighteen years. To
put an edge to the enjoyment of this visit, that was intense to
one interested in all out-of-door sports, Jim took a pan of chopped
liver and the instant the meat struck the water in one of the ponds,
three thousand yellow bellies made the water foam and boil with their
lightning-like flashes. Then he threw some to the big ones, those
lazy fifteen and eighteen pounders. They made some troubled waters,
too, a thousand of them, four tons of trout flesh all in motion,
handsome fellows that would come sailing, mouths wide open, towards
the surface and flop their bodies, nearly a yard in length, entirely
out of water. Connecticut fishermen, who tramp for miles with cold,
soaked feet and return home with a wet back and a hungry stomach,
having secured only a few ounces of trout meat, can, perhaps, get a
faint idea from this hurried description of what is to be seen here,
but they ought to come and see it themselves. Of course, fishing in a
hatching pond would lack the zest which men naturally feel in killing
a wild thing, but "I have known it done."

Those that are turned loose down the stream make very poor eating,
for their life diet of liver and lights renders their meat very
tasteless. It evidently needs the piquancy of a spider or fly to
give a true gamey flavor. Just before reaching Lima, I stopped at
Mr. Augustus Metcalf's, to make inquiries about the roads, and his son
Willard, being a wheelman, kindly invited me to stay over night. My
short visit with them will always be remembered with pleasure.

All the way from Syracuse, in fact all the way from Albany to Buffalo,
I took the old, original turnpike. No matter whether I finally
decided to take the "lower" road between intermediate places, or the
"upper" road or the "middle" road or the "river" road or the "ridge"
road or the "middle ridge" road, or a plank, clay, sand, or gravel
road; whatever road I happened to be on some old farmer would soon
tell me I was traveling on the "old original turnpike between Albany
and Buffalo." One went back so far as to say that the said turnpike
followed an old Indian trail, and they all seemed to take pride in
mentioning the fact that their farms are situated on what was once
such a celebrated thoroughfare. But there is another fact in regard
to old highways that rests on a more substantial foundation than the
disputed question as to which is the "old original." The main street
leading out of Utica west towards Syracuse is called Genesee street,
into Syracuse it is East Genesee, out of Syracuse West Genesee, and
so on through Auburn, I think, and all the principal places until
Buffalo is reached by going into the city by the same Genesee street.

Going up the Mohawk valley the view one gets is not very extended,
but after leaving Syracuse, clear through to Batavia, 125 miles, the
country is undulating, and from the top of the many hills a traveler
gets a fine view of a most beautiful country. Although the leaves were
not yet out when I passed through this section, the grass was green,
and the cherry trees were in bloom on Good Friday. Fine shade trees
abound along the highways, and through many of the places a double
row lines the principal streets, and fine sidewalks and level riding
make a trip through this section, even so early in the season, very
enjoyable. Arriving at Buffalo, the instant I crossed his threshold
Mr. C. W. Adams, secretary of the Buffalo Bicycle Club, made me feel
perfectly at home. He is dark complexioned, below the medium height,
smooth faced, wears glasses, and is about 25 years of age. I found in
traveling farther west that his hospitable manner and winning ways
have made him a favorite with all wheelmen who have met him. It was
not enough to take me about the finest rides in that beautiful city,
after supper, and find a very entertaining escort for me about the city
the next morning, but a trip to the falls and the bridge with him the
next afternoon made my visit at Buffalo the pleasantest by far of any
short stop I have had during a tour of many pleasant experiences. In
the city there are fifteen or twenty miles of asphalt pavements as
smooth as glass, block asphalt excepted, besides miles and miles of
fine park roads, and with such drives it is not strange that the club
is outgrowing its old club house--old only in name--and is moving
into a very large two-story building on the main street, which will
soon be nicely filled up with everything that such a genuine riding,
working, racing, hospitable club needs. Judging from the dozen
or more members of the club that I met, such kind, open-hearted,
courteous fellows deserve all the success that the nutmeg stranger
they took in could wish them, and that is unlimited. By train to
the falls and out upon Goat Island on our wheels. I dared to follow
where Mr. Adams led, but being ahead he didn't notice I took the
inside rut of the driveway that runs around the island close to the
edge, where a fall to one side would have sent my friend and machine
over the bank into the rapids. I can follow as narrow a path on a
wheel as anyone in some places, but around the edge of Goat Island
is not one of those places. After visiting the place a dozen times
or more I might, perhaps; but the first--yes, it was the first time
I ever saw Niagara. When I tried to express myself about it every
word sounded so flat, so meaningless, so utterly unfit. I might as
well try to define the Infinite. I had nothing to say and was dumb,
and am yet whenever I think of it. It seems about fifty years ago an
insurrection broke out in Canada and the steamer Caroline was used
by some filibustering Americans a few miles above here to help the
fuss along. But the Canadian authorities finally seized the steamer,
touched a match to it and set it adrift. How it came down over the
rapids, all afire from stem to stern, and went over the falls, can
better be imagined than described, at least by me. In conversation
about the occurrence, near the stairs that lead down to where the
tower used to stand, and telling how I should like to have seen it,
the hackman said with a condescending air: "O yes, but that is only
one of many grand scenes that you have missed by coming here late,"
and from his manner I inferred that strange and wonderful things had
occurred on this river for the last 10,000 years at least, and that if
I had come in when the doors first opened the one price of admission
would have taken me through the entire show. Considering the amount
of time and labor required to put this play upon the stage, or hack,
rather, the wonder is, not Niagara by any means, but that these poor
palæozoic hackmen can afford to exhibit for the price they do. The
unfortunate delusion abroad that they charge only for the scene in
the play that is being acted now is undoubtedly a great mistake,
and they suffer in the estimation of the public accordingly. Their
price is for what has occurred since the curtain rose in the Upper
Silurian down to the present and until the curtain falls where Erie
and Ontario are one. Those who come early and stay late and are not
satisfied will doubtless have their money refunded at the close of the
entertainment. At least such was the intimation of the man I met. Down
a couple of miles to the suspension bridge, a look at the cantilever
bridge,--a structure that in its construction was more wonderful than
in its completed state, for the arms of the immense iron piers were
built out over the river till they met in the middle--across the river
and down to the whirlpool and back, and the day, a red letter one,
was ended.

Thursday morning was clear and cool, and I left Buffalo with a last
look at the black cloud of smoke hovering over it that stretched,
thinner and thinner, far out over the lake. The roads were fine along
the shore, and once or twice I laid down on the grass on the edge of
the cliff that juts out over the water, perhaps forty feet below, and
tried to imagine I was tired so I could have an excuse for stopping,
but the cool breezes at my back urged me on and the certain prospect of
fine road ahead kept me going, and so all day long I paddled onward,
always with the wind and sometimes like it. The breeze next day blew
strong, from the southeast, at right angles to my course, but the road
remained good. Once I stopped under a shed to avoid a slight shower,
but soon found a red handkerchief hanging at my waist was not a safe
thing to have around a barn-yard, for a bull over the fence near me
almost immediately began to paw the ground and bellow, and so I moved
on without much delay. At times the wind would blow me out of the road
on to the side, and when I got fairly braced to tack against it at
an angle of forty-five degrees, more or less, it would suddenly let
up and back into the road I would go with a rush, the wheel leaving
a sort of self-registering mark behind that indicated the velocity
of the wind at the different points in the road. Notwithstanding
the wind and ten miles of sand and clay, too soft and rutty to ride,
the 200 miles from Buffalo to Cleveland was made in three days, with
two or three hours to spare, so any wheelman can judge of the general
average of the roads. I never saw as long a stretch of fine wheeling.

Just here a word about guide-boards. In Connecticut, as we all know,
guide-boards are a feature of every main and almost all cross-roads
throughout the State, and are usually a great help to travelers by
road. But along the Sound they grew scarcer, until coming into York
State they were wanting entirely. In riding over 500 miles through
different parts of that State, I remember seeing but four public
guide-boards, and two of those were placed there by Poughkeepsie
wheelmen. The roads are no straighter than in other States, and so the
only thing to do in case of doubt is to take the side of safety and
ask questions. These delays many times a day amount to a great deal,
but there is no other way. But the instant I crossed the State line
into the northwest corner of Pennsylvania every road and cross-road
had a guide board. The change is like magic. And here in Ohio they
go so far in the guide-board business as to tell you which way you
can go to a certain place without crossing a railroad. For instance,
to-day I passed a board which read: "Painesville without R. R. crossing
2 miles," another way being shorter. For miles around Buffalo in every
direction the land is very low and wet, requiring much ditching, but it
rises gradually on towards Cleveland, after passing Erie, which like
Buffalo is situated nearly on a level with the lake, and the towns,
such as Conneaut, Ashtabula, and Painesville, seem to increase in
size as the land rises to a higher level, till Cleveland, largest
of all, stands on a higher bluff than any. After leaving Buffalo the
streams that flow into the lake gradually increase in size also, and
they wear a channel down through the solid rock which rises almost
perpendicularly on each side. These ravines, at each one of which is
a town or city, increase in depth as the general level of the land
rises. So, as one travels west from Erie over an apparently level
country, there are constantly seen larger streams, deeper ravines,
higher levels, and larger cities. The Lake Shore and Nickle Plate
railroads are of course obliged to cross all these ravines, and their
bridges increase in height till some of them are over one hundred feet
above the river bed. I passed close by the Ashtabula bridge where,
many will remember, a terrible accident occurred a few years ago on
a cold December night.

Speaking about railroads reminds me of a little incident of
yesterday. All the railroads along the route have adopted the four
whistles for a crossing, the Hudson River and New York Central being
the only exceptions, I think, so the familiar signal first used by the
New York and New England Railroad in the Eastern States is constantly
heard. Yesterday I sat down under a tree to rest a few minutes when
I heard in the distance the whistle of a train, and being near the
tracks, waited to see the train pass. It came no nearer for some
time, but I noticed the crossings seemed to be at regular intervals
apart. Still the train did not come. Finally, happening to turn my
head on one side the sound came from above, and looking up into the
tree I saw a small brown bird that at regular intervals would swell
up and utter a sound that nine persons in ten would mistake for the
four whistles of a locomotive in the distance.

The other day, in turning out to pass a team, I carelessly rode
into some hard clay ruts that threw me instantly,--so suddenly that
I turned almost a complete somersault. That is, I thought I did,
for some time, for the blow I received on the back of the head that
made it snap for a while could not be accounted for upon any other
supposition than that I had gone clear over and struck the back of my
head on the hard ground. I did not note just the position I was in
when I picked myself up; the person in the wagon did that probably;
but I was painfully aware that something hit me, hard too. It was
the fifteen-pound knapsack that flew up and hit me a stunning blow
on the back of the head. If I had been at home I would have bandaged
my head, gone into an easy chair, and called the doctor. As it was,
I simply remounted, trundled on, and was all right again in an hour.

Nine hundred and eighteen miles in three weeks.








CHAPTER V.

THROUGH OHIO AND INDIANA.


Riding slowly through Mentor, Ohio, a small place with two stores
and a meeting-house, I overtook a man driving a raw-boned bay horse
that jogged along in a lifeless sort of a way. The driver too seemed
to be tired, as he leaned forward holding his body up by resting his
elbows on his knees, but this shiftless acting man drove into the
yard at Garfield's old home and was Mrs. Garfield's farmer. Views
of the homestead and its surroundings are familiar to every one,
but a large two-story stone addition is being built that alters the
appearance of the house somewhat. This handsome addition is doubtless
fire-proof, and the lower windows are protected with heavy iron bars,
giving the whole addition the appearance of an elegant prison, but it
is designed, I am told, to preserve all of Garfield's books, papers,
and other valuables.

Six miles east of Cleveland, a city named after a Connecticut
surveyor, is the Lake View Cemetery, at which place I stopped a few
minutes at the tomb that holds the remains of Garfield, guarded by
a squad of United States infantry. The use of the tomb was given
to Mrs. Garfield by a private family until such time as the remains
could be deposited in their final resting place on the top of a hill
a short distance away. The Garfield monument, the massive foundation
of which is barely finished, and of which George Keller of Hartford,
is the architect, is on a site that commands a fine view of the lake,
the city, and the surrounding country for miles; the most beautiful
location in that part of the State.

Euclid is a small village full of rum-holes, and surrounded by mud and
water, the most forsaken place I have yet seen, and in every respect,
excepting distance, Euclid avenue in Cleveland is as far removed from
Euclid as Paradise from Purgatory. Buffalo has streets as beautiful,
with better pavements, but none as long. The poplar seems to be the
popular tree, long stately rows lining the sides of the street. I was
using the sidewalk on what is called the "bob" side of this street when
a rider, using the pavement on the opposite, the "Nabob" side, warned
me I had better get off the sidewalk, and so I rode into the city over
poor pavements with the gentleman that proved to be the president of
the Cleveland club, Mr. H. B. Payne. Plank roads are a necessity in
the clay soil of the outer suburbs of Cleveland, but covered with two
or three inches of mud and sunken about eight or ten inches below the
level of the ground, these plank roads are neither pleasant to look
at nor easy to ride over. Much of the low, wet land between Buffalo
and Cleveland that will not produce a profitable crop of any of the
cereals, is lately being used in raising grapes, currants, and other
small fruits. This industry, new for this section of the country,
is assuming enormous proportions, and I passed acres and acres of
land entirely devoted to grapes. In fact the country seemed to be one
vast vineyard, and I could easily imagine what a delicious sight it
must present in the fall of the year, and my parched mouth seemed to
get drier as I rode past the immense cellars that I knew were full of
the cool wine. The route I was to take to Columbus was given me very
explicitly at Cleveland as far as Wellington, and from that place I
was told to "go right on to Columbus," from which I understood that
the latter place was only a short distance ahead. But at Wellington,
wheelmen could tell me nothing, livery stable keepers could only guess
at the best route, which I was equally able to do, and so I struck
out blindly. I went right on, not always right, however, often wrong,
but still I went. The Ohio wheelmen are to issue a road book soon,
but if the information in it is no more extended than the knowledge
of roads possessed by all the northern Ohio wheelmen I have met,
from the consuls up to the riders of baby bicycles, the value of the
book will not be very great.

And this is the kind of country I went into. Land, low, level, and
wet. Very little land under cultivation and that little producing
a very thin crop of wheat. Houses small and out of repair. Barns
tumbling down and propped up. No pebbly brooks or clean wells, but
plenty of stagnant pools and plenty of warm rain-water to drink. If
a farm-house has happened to burn down the farm is deserted. Nobody
seemed to be doing anything and everybody was waiting for the land to
dry up or something to turn up. The farmers were all fat, good natured,
and wanted to talk. The roads were in awful condition, full of hard,
dry ruts, and chunks of clay, that would beat a man's brains out if
his head came in contact with them. No one was going from place to
place, and over a portion of one main road only two teams had passed
in three days--since the last rain. Everybody seemed to have settled
down into the wet clay and to become contented; as happy as a great
fat hog wallowing in the mud and grunting with satisfaction. To be
sure there are a few places of three or four thousand inhabitants
scattered along through this otherwise thinly populated section, but
this is the general impression a traveler gets. I had to walk over a
good portion of the road and so had plenty of chance to observe the
condition of things for seventy-five miles south of Cleveland.

Besides, the farmers are as ignorant as they are indolent, knowing
little about their own State and less about other States. Not one
in ten of them could tell me within a hundred and fifty miles the
distance to Columbus, their own capital. One man persisted in thinking
Connecticut was a small village with a cotton mill, in the State of
Rhode Island, and I could not hammer--we were in a blacksmith's shop
out of the rain at the time--I could not hammer anything else into
the fat old simpleton's head. Then, in the large towns along the way,
as if to add insult to injury, the people, in talking to me about this
section of poor roads and poor farmers, referred to them as "Yankee
roads" and "Yankee farmers." But the people out here, although rather
despising the close, saving habits of the average New Englander,
yet do respect the perseverance, the tenacity, the sort of bull-dog
grip that they think the inhabitants of the Eastern States are noted
for. They pity the farmers of New England who contend against a stony,
barren soil, but they regard with admiration their constant endeavors
to obtain a competency. Here they get their living, such as it is,
so easy. At the risk of making a too egotistical illustration of
how they regard a little perseverance I will give a little incident
that occurred at Wellington, a place of three or four thousand
inhabitants. A large portly gentleman, fifty or sixty years old,
sitting in a carriage in front of a fine residence, stopped me to ask
the inevitable questions, where from, where to, and all about it. Then
he "hollered" loud enough for all Wellington to hear, "Wife, wife,
come out here and see this boy; this boy from Connecticut. Come all
the way on a bicycle, goes sixty and seventy miles a day some days;
going clear out to Denver on it. There's an Eastern boy for you,
that's Eastern grit, that is. That's Eastern," and he smiled all over
his round face and wished me all the good luck in the world.

Tuesday I experienced some of the difficulties of the Western mud. A
light drizzling rain in the morning made the roads too slippery to
ride, and walking was hardly possible. The sticky mud accumulated
under the brake and between the forks till, obliged to turn the
machine around and push it backwards with the little wheel in the air,
the big wheel finally stuck fast and slid along in the road. Then in
pushing up hill with all the strength I had my feet would slip back
and in going down hill I slipped up, paradoxical as it may seem. But
a heavy rain the next morning made the highways impassable for a
pedestrian even, and so I took to the lots, avoiding the plowed fields
whenever possible. Through ordinary soil the sides of the roads would
be passable, but all the holes made by cattle during the spring mud
for the last twenty-five years remain to-day just as they were made
along the sides, and when these holes are filled with water it is
not pleasant to have your foot slip into one of them and then have
the water squirt all over you, therefore I took the lots, climbing
post and rail fences, crawling through and lifting the machine over
barbed wire fences, any way to get along, but all day I made only
twelve miles and worked hard too.

Along in the afternoon a gentleman in a buggy, the first team I had
seen during the day, offered to help me along a mile or so. Seated
in the backside of his buggy with my legs hanging off and dragging
the machine after me, I thought that was not just the advertised way
of going "right on to Columbus," but it was to Columbus I was going,
someway. If the machine was muddy the day before, it was plastered
all over now. The sticky clay would accumulate under the forks and
saddle, and drop off in such big chunks that at times I did not know
but I had kept hold of the wrong chunk, and had left the machine back
somewhere in the road. Then from the shape of the mass of mud near
the locality where the cyclometer was last seen, I observed that the
ingenious little appliance was gliding gracefully along bottom-side
up. But all this did not last. The roads dried up before night so I
could walk in them. A mound of clay beside the road marks the spot
where I cleaned up the machine, and after passing through Ashland,
Mansfield, and some other smaller places, the next day, thirty-five
miles above Columbus I came to a "double-track" road and the hard
work was over. These double-track or "summer" roads, as they are
called, are made of coarse gravel on one side, and the natural soil,
the clay, on the other, the clay track being preferred in the summer,
and the gravel in the winter and spring. But I forgot to mention one
little incident of the day before. In jumping into a team-wagon for
a short ride, the corduroy breeches, with a loud report, split open
across the seat, really to such an extent that a change of apparel was
absolutely necessary, but before I could get to a barn, in which to
disrobe, I met several teams, in which were young ladies, and I know
they thought me very bold to turn about and face them after they had
passed. Stopping at Cardington, I found a wheelman, Mr. Samuel Brown,
who was also a tailor, and he put my breeches in riding order again.

The State capitol at Columbus is a heavy, square, granite building,
with piles of immense grindstones laid one on top of the other that
answers for pillars in front. It has very much the appearance of an
Egyptian temple, and is dark inside and dingy out. The buildings in
these Western cities, whether built of marble, granite, sand-stone,
or brick, all soon have the same dingy look, the smoke from the
immense amount of soft coal used being the probable cause. The members
of the legislature there convened all had an easy-going happy way
about them, and the clerk and messengers were slow and innocent in
their manners, in sharp contrast to the business-like, clean-cut
appearance of many Eastern legislators, and the rapid actions of
Eastern clerks and messengers. On the way out of the city I passed
the insane asylum, an institution that to outward appearances will
accommodate more patients and that certainly did produce more noise
by yelling lunatics than the one at Middletown, Conn. Both north and
west of Columbus for many miles log huts are seen on all sides, some
deserted, but most of them still occupied, that confounded clay pasted
into the cracks between the logs, making the best kind of protection
against the weather. Great black sows with chunked little black pigs
are as plenty by the roadside as hens and chickens are in the East,
and they are often seen roaming around the streets in good sized towns.

Three miles west of Dayton is the Soldiers' Home, and as I rode
through the entrance to the grounds, a big Dutchman stopped me,
but finding my object was simply to ride about the grounds and
out again, he said: "Vell, when you get up into the crowd be very
careful, for some are blind and some deaf, and if you run into one
h--l will be to pay." There was quite a crowd, four or five thousand
of them, some fishing, some watching the alligator, all seemingly
enjoying themselves about the grounds--grounds that are laid out
in beautiful shape, and that contain everything almost that would
make life happy. All enjoying themselves? No, not all, for over on
the farther side of the grounds several hundred were laying away,
with military honors, one who had gone over to the silent majority,
and as they filled his grave another grave was being dug.

Mr. T. J. Kirkpatrick of Springfield, is of medium size, middle aged,
light complexioned, with light-colored side-whiskers and mustache,
and from my ten minutes' talk with him I am satisfied that if there
had been no other route from Cleveland to Columbus than the one the
local consul at Cleveland gave me, Kirkpatrick would have started
out and made one for the occasion. He is one of those men who can't
do enough to help you along, and is an honor to the L. A. W.

The "pike" from Columbus to Indianapolis is a road that originally
must have been built at great expense, for it is raised fifteen feet
or more along some of the low lands, and now is kept in excellent
repair,--a broad, level, and very straight highway, so straight that
in forty-four miles there are only two slight bends in it, and so
level in places that for twelve miles there is not the slightest rise
or depression. In the western part of Ohio the land is just rolling
enough to make some very fine coasting, and at times you can look
straight ahead eight or ten miles, to the top of an apparently very
high hill where the telegraph poles seem to come together, they are
so far off, and the task of climbing that hill makes you faint in
anticipation, but long before you get there the hill has faded away
(another illustration of the maxim never to climb a hill until you
get to it), the grade up it has been so gradual, and then, at last,
you can look back and see another hill just as high that you have
come down without knowing it. The very numerous toll-gate keepers
along this pike charge two cents a mile for a horse, so if I had had
one of flesh and blood, the expense one day would have been $1.52,
but it being of steel and rubber, and only part of a rubber tire on
the little wheel at that, the cost for toll was nothing. The road
from Buffalo to Cleveland I thought was high water-mark, but this
pike is so uniformly good for 180 miles that it must have first place.

The appetite such a journey as this gives one is no small part of
the pleasure of the trip, everything tastes so good. The truth was
never more plainly stated than by a Spartan waiter. Dionysius was
taking a "hasty plate of soup," at one of those free lunches they
gave there in Greece so often, when, pushing back from the table, he
complained that the black broth was not highly seasoned enough for
him. The waiter roared it through the hall "Seasoned! We season it
by running, sweating, and getting tired, hungry, and thirsty." It is
truly wonderful how such exercise does increase a person's digestive
ability. I can imagine to a certain degree just how Milo, a Grecian
athlete, must have enjoyed himself. Twenty pounds was the amount of
his daily bread, and the same quantity of meat, besides fifteen quarts
of wine, taken afterwards, no doubt, for his stomach's ache. One
day, feeling somewhat faint from lack of nourishment, he knocked a
four-year-old in the head with his fist, and devoured the whole "beef
critter" during the day. To some this may at first appear incredible,
but there is one explanation, at least, that is plausible: Milo must
undoubtedly have been a wheelman.

The first night out from Columbus I stopped at a farm-house. I walked
around to the side door and was just going into the dining-room,
when a man, with black hair, wild eyes, and thin pale face came
out. He took one sharp look at me, and turning suddenly, slammed the
glass door in my face, rushed through the dining-room, and pulling
a spread from the table in his flight, and covering himself up with
it, disappeared. But not for a great while. As I was eating supper
he came back through the room, slamming the doors in his wild rush,
and ran out into the yard, as if the very devil was after him. Then I
could see him out in the dark, his eyes glaring in at me through the
window, and after a while, when everything was still, bang! would go
some door, and away he would run through the room into the bed-room
again. Still he said nothing, had not spoken for years, they told
me. Once or twice during the evening he came slowly into the room,
sidling along with his face averted, and his hands apparently warding
off some blow coming from where I sat, and during the night I heard
an occasional crash as if the side of the house had fallen in. It was
that lunatic trying to get out of the cage in which they confined him,
while the inmates of the house were asleep.

Distance traveled in four weeks, 1,257 miles.








CHAPTER VI.

AT CHICAGO.


I had hardly crossed the Indiana State line when the tire on the
rear wheel broke in two pieces and came off. Luckily, I was not far
from Richmond where a wheelman gave me a second-hand eighteen inch
tire, which he cut down to fit the sixteen inch wheel, and by wiring
it on occasionally I reached Chicago with no further trouble on my
part from the wheel. Just before reaching Indianapolis, however, the
machine was the cause of a broken buggy wheel. I had just dismounted
to avoid a drove of cattle, when a horse, coming towards me, suddenly
decided to go the other way. I stood still in my tracks but that made
no difference, the horse cramped the buggy so short that the front
wheel went to pieces, and had not the men jumped out and grabbed
the horse by the bit, just as they did, there would have been more
trouble. As it was, they left the buggy by the roadside and walked
a short distance to their destination, without expressing an opinion
that I was in any way to blame for the accident.

The State capitol at Indianapolis is a building of the Grecian style
of architecture, 300 feet wide, 500 feet long, and three stories
high. It has been seven years in building and two years more will
be required to complete it, but the stones have become so stained
and dingy from the smoke that smuts everything out of doors in all
these Western cities that the structure from the outside already
looks like an old building. Several of those in authority about the
building were very anxious to have me know that the dirty appearance
of the outside would all disappear when the building was completed,
but no amount of scrubbing will make it clean until the use of soft
coal is done away with. The smoke from that coal discolors everything,
and the finest stone buildings are bereft of much of the beauty from
this cause. The Palmer House, a stone building here in Chicago, for
instance, was painted white less than two years ago to get rid of
the smutty appearance that it had acquired, but even now it looks as
dirty and dingy as though it had never been painted. Scrub and paint
all they may there is not a building in all the West, I believe, that
looks as clean and white on the outside as our own State capitol on
Bushnell Park. But to return to the capitol at Indianapolis. Black
and dirty as it will always look on the outside, on the inside it is
to be almost entirely pure white, giving it, in comparison with the
capitol at Albany and our own, a much cheaper look. But it is superior
to either of those other buildings in one respect and that is, as
far as I could see, there has been no settling or chipping. One of
the finest corridors in the Albany capitol is so sadly marred in
appearance by the settling of the foundation that the breaks and
cracks in the panels on the side are noticeable to every one. But
the dome to the Indiana capitol, which is to be 300 feet high, is
not yet finished, and the proof of the stability of building has
thus hardly been furnished. A very interesting part of my two hours'
clambering over the building and about the works was the sawing and
planing of the stones used in the construction. The stone mouldings
and cornices and all the straight work on the whole building is done
by machinery just as the wood used in the construction of a wooden
building is prepared in advance. The carving was the only work done
by hand in preparing the stones for the masons to place in position.

The county court house at Indianapolis is typical of one very
noticeable phase of the Western desire for display. It is a fine
substantial building no doubt, but inside it is one conglomeration
of different kinds of marble; panels, walls, balustrades, everything
inside almost is marble; all the kinds and colors that are in existence
are represented here, and many kinds are to be found nowhere else in
the world but here: all these are mixed up in the most gaudy manner
possible. But look a little closer and there is not a bit of marble
there, it is all paint, imitation. And where the paint is wearing off
the fraud is badly exposed, giving the whole building the appearance
of a decided sham. Another instance of this desire for display that
is not shown by counterfeiting at least, is seen in the elegant
barber's shop at the Palmer House. Set into the tiling on the floor
are nearly four hundred silver dollars that add nothing at all to
the beauty of the floor. But many of the buildings that have been
erected here in Chicago within the last three or four years are very
substantial and whatever there is about them is real and not flashy
in appearance. Clustering around the Board of Trade Building, which
probably is the finest building of the kind outside of New York,
are many handsome structures occupying a quarter of a square, that
go up into the sky ten, twelve, and thirteen stories high.

I have spoken of the hogs and pigs that are seen all along the roadside
through Ohio and Indiana. The numerous sheep that are feeding along
the highways show some sense by simply turning to one side to let
me pass, and often bleating after me as I leave them behind as if
they were sorry to have me go; but the pigs will start up and run
along ahead, scaring all the others with their short, quick grunts,
until a drove of a dozen or fifteen are bobbing along and running
into each other in their foolish attempt to get out of the way. Then
they will all suddenly stop, stand perfectly still, and let me pass
without flinching. If Eastern people who have a prejudice against
Western pork could see what the hogs are fed upon they would have
good reason to change their opinions. The hogs eat a great deal of
grass and are not confined to any muddy, filthy pen as they are in
the East, but roam around the woods and fields as do the cows and
sheep. In the fall corn on the ear is thrown out into the lots to them,
and I can't see how pork could be fatted in any cleaner way.

While the hog is being discussed I must tell what I saw of the
manner of his death at the Union Stock Yards just outside of the city
limits. Prominent among the many buildings at the yards that cover
365 acres is an office of the Illinois Humane Society, which gives
a visitor the impression that he will see nothing but kind treatment
and humane ways of killing the beef and hogs, and as far as the cattle
are concerned there is nothing objectionable about the process, for
a bullet in the brain renders them insensible at the outset. But the
hogs--well, this is what I saw. A dozen or more at a time are driven
into a pen in one of those immense packing houses. A man slips a chain
quickly around one of their hind legs and they are jerked up into the
air by machinery, so that their heads are about four or five feet from
the floor. They are suspended on little pulleys which roll them along
into another pen where a man cuts their throats. This man was standing
in clotted blood ankle deep, and the squealing, kicking row of hogs
threw blood all over him, which he frequently washed off at a barrel
of water near. A hog was jerked up about every ten seconds, and there
would be six or eight at a time hanging with their throats cut. Before
they had time to die or grow very weak from the loss of blood they were
dropped on to an inclined board, and from there they slipped off into
the scalding tub. Sometimes two or three would collect on this board
and then they would all slide off into the hot water together. Very
few of them were dead when they went in, and they would go plunging
and struggling around in there, throwing the water in every direction,
till gradually becoming weaker they would lie still, a dozen of them,
in the long narrow tub at a time, and be turned over and over by men
with poles very much as cooks turn nut-cakes over with a fork in the
hot fat. Why such haste should be used in getting them into the hot
water I cannot see, and I understand the Humane Society have tried
unsuccessfully to stop such inhuman work, but this is the sight I came
unawares upon, a spectacle that I have not enlarged upon or exaggerated
in the least. The hogs were simply drowned in hot water. The rest of
the work I rather enjoyed. The scalded hogs were taken out and placed
upon a revolving wheel, covered with scrapers, which took all the hair
off excepting around the head and legs. This wheel was wide enough to
hold three hogs at a time, and they were turned over several times in
order to scrape all sides of them. Then men finished up the scraping
with knives, the heads were taken off with two or three strokes of
the knife, and from the time the hog was first seized by the leg till
he was cut up two or three men were at work on him all the time,
one set of men passing him along to the next, each doing certain
parts of the work. Thus 2,500 hogs a day are put to death by this
one set of men, and there was machinery in this same packing house
for two other sets of man, so that seven or eight thousand hogs are
scalded to death, scalded from the inside as well as from the outside,
every day. This packing house is in full operation, and this is only
one of many such houses in the stock-yards. I remember now there was
an invitation prominent over the door of the Humane Society to make
"complaints at this office," and every time I think of the horrible
work being perpetrated so near by, I wonder of what earthly good is
such a society. I only regret that I did not complain at the time,
useless as it would undoubtedly have been, but then I did not realize
what an awful sight I had seen. The enormity of the cruelty has grown
on me since. But let me change the subject. A bowl of bread and milk
in the middle of the day is to be had, almost for the asking, and it
not only serves to quench thirst, but what strength it gives is sooner
felt than if the food was of a more solid nature. One day I asked an
old lady for a bowl of bread and milk, and she brought me the milk in
a bowl with two huge slices of bread thrust down into the milk whole,
and then she handed me a two-tined fork to eat it with. Often when I
am caught out between places at night and have to ask accommodations
at farm-houses, I can usually get taken in by saying "a bowl of bread
and milk will do for supper."

One night, soon after the machine had been put into the front
parlor,--the farmers always think the best room in the house none
too good for that "silver" horse, as some of them term it--and
the knapsack had been laid away in the corner, the husband came in
from the barn with two pails of milk, followed by his little boy,
who was just old enough to walk if no threshold or hole in the rag
carpet interfered with his progress. The milk was placed in the
buttery on the floor, and the little youngster of course had to see
that it was done all right. Then the farmer came out and everything
was quiet for a minute, when suddenly there was a splash. As it
so often happens to such toddling young ones, the little fellow's
toes suddenly flew up from some unaccountable reason, and he sat
down into one of those foaming pails of milk. He never said a word,
but sat there perfectly still until his mother, happening to go into
the buttery, saw the floor covered with milk, and she jerked him out
of that pail as one would pull a close-fitting cork out of a bottle,
and with very much the same kind of a sound. When supper was ready,
in reply to her question, I said I preferred "cold morning's milk to
the warm or warmed over night's milk."

About forty miles above Indianapolis, in a sparsely settled district,
I passed a small church filled to overflowing with people, and a
little further on I met a funeral procession. It had been raining
during the morning, but among the fifty or more teams that formed
the procession, there was but one top carriage, two buggies, and the
rest were all heavy team-wagons. In these farm wagons with boards
for seats, were whole families that had come a dozen miles, probably,
to attend the funeral. From this it seems that buggies and business
wagons are luxuries that the average Western farmer does not yet feel
able to afford.

At Lafayette, I called at the home of Mr. Frank A. Lewis, to inquire as
to the condition of the roads farther on, and his mother kindly asked
me in to supper. Before that was finished, Frank returned with several
wheelmen, among them Mr. Wal. Wolever, a young photographer. Here the
pikes or gravel roads which made the riding excellent so far came to
an end, and there was nothing before me for 120 miles to Chicago but
black clay roads. It had rained heavily for three successive nights,
and after riding over 1,300 miles to reach a city that is not 1,000
miles by direct routes from Hartford, I may, perhaps, be forgiven for
wishing to avoid three hard days' work, without any practical return
for it in knowledge or experience by taking the train to Chicago. After
reaching that city, and being kindly received by friends and old
schoolmates, it was with a strong feeling of thankfulness for my own
safety, that I read the accounts of the terrible cyclones and floods
that had passed through sections of Ohio and Indiana, carrying away
bridges that I had so lately ridden over in safety, and perhaps killing
men and women from whom I had so recently received kind treatment.

The system of beautiful parks that environ Chicago, and the boulevards
that connect them are the pride of the city, and the citizens have
good reason for being so proud of them. Only a few years ago the
whole country around about the city was a low level wet prairie,
but now there are six as beautiful parks as are to be found in almost
any city in the country; parks filled with lakes, cascades, brooks,
hills, groves, grottoes, wild animals and tame ones, and everything
almost that is to be found in places where nature furnishes things
to order. In Lincoln Park, for instance, is a mound of earth, a
hill I suppose they call it, that is probably the highest point of
land for many miles near the city, but this, like everything else
in these parks, is artificial. All through Ohio and Indiana there is
much land that has not yet been cleared, and these clumps and strips
of timber give a variety to the country that would otherwise have
been very monotonous to me, riding for hours and hours as I did over
nearly level roads. These woods have little if any underbrush, and the
grass through them is kept closely cropped by cows, sheep, and hogs,
so that these two States are filled with hundreds of beautiful groves
that invite a lazy wheelman to stop and stay awhile in the cool shade.

One day, wishing to get rid of the several days' growth of bristling
beard on my face, I took out my shaving apparatus, hooked the leather
strap to the brake handle, honed the razor, found an old can, brought
some water from a brook near by, pinned the pocket mirror on a tree,
and got as clean a shave as I ever had, washing my face with one
corner of a handkerchief, and drying it with the other end.

But the open level prairie that surrounds Chicago on all sides must
have a sort of depressing influence on the thoughts and ideas of those
who are born and brought up without the variety of brooks, hills,
mountains, and ocean. The first question usually asked me by farmers,
who probably have never traveled far from their prairie homes, is:
"How far do you live from the salt water?" and when I tell them the
distance, which until this trip always seemed to me considerable,
but which to them, with their distances and so many things on such
an immense scale, seems trifling, they act as if a sniff of the salt
sea air from a distance of forty or fifty miles would be a blessing
that they could hardly hope for. And yet Lake Michigan, to me, would
seem a very good substitute for the ocean in everything but the
taste of the water. Two of these parks are washed by the waters of
this lake, and so badly washed too that the shore at Jackson Park is
rip-rapped for nearly a mile, making a beautiful white-stone beach. The
boulevards are laid out on as grand a scale and with as little regard
to expense as are the parks. The grand boulevard is Commonwealth
avenue in Boston over again, only it is twice as long, with a very
broad avenue in the center and a street of good width on each side,
one for equestrians and the other for wheelmen, I should judge,
for it is very smooth. Ten rows of beautiful elms stretch away in a
straight line for two miles, the larger ones having rows of smaller
ones on each side. Drexel boulevard has two broad avenues, lined with
trees on the outside, and the center filled with lovely flower-beds,
for over a mile in length. Other boulevards laid out on a similar
plan but not in so finished a condition, connect the different parks,
making a continuous drive of nearly forty miles, all as smooth as the
most fastidious wheelman could desire. Then there are the lake drives,
Dearborn and Michigan avenues, and many other streets too numerous
and common to mention, common nowhere but in Chicago though. Chicago
wheelmen know so little about coasting, that it seemed quite a novelty
to them to see an Eastern boy ride with his legs over the handles,
and when I coasted down into one of the tunnels that run under the
Chicago River, and disappeared in the darkness, their eyes stuck out
with wonder. It was a novelty to me, too, for the dripping water gave
me quite a shower bath before I came out on the other side.

Distance traveled on the wheel, 1,420 miles.








CHAPTER VII.

ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI.


My time was so taken up in visiting old friends and seeing the sights
in Chicago that I found no opportunity to make the acquaintance of many
wheelmen in that city, but I met Mr. B. B. Ayers, who kindly gave me
directions for pursuing the journey westward, and so after a week's
stay in Chicago I started for Minonk, 125 miles away to the southwest,
to visit friends in that place, and the two days and a half passed
on that journey were the hardest of the trip thus far. One would
naturally think 1,500 miles of riding in the past five or six weeks
would have so strengthened the muscles of my arms that they would not
trouble me at least, but the hard, lumpy, rutty black clay roads of
Illinois were too much for them. My elbows became so stiff I could
hardly bend them, and the nervous strain occasioned by the constant
jar was very exhausting. Once I was induced to take the railroad track
and found very good riding for a few miles. At the station they told
me the next train would not be along for an hour and it would come
from the direction in which I was going, so I rode along unconcerned,
for I could see ahead for miles. Suddenly, without the least warning,
the sound of a short, sharp whistle from behind caused me to jump
off and into the ditch as I never did before. It was well I did so
quickly, for an extra locomotive immediately rushed by, and I came to
the sudden conclusion it would be a long while and the roads pretty
bad before I should again leave them to ride on a railroad track.

Two turnpike companies once started to build a pike from Indianapolis
to Lafayette, Ind., seventy miles, but when within two miles of each
other there was a disagreement between the two companies and that
intervening piece of road has never been finished. Although there is
a great deal of travel over this splendid pike there is not public
spirit sufficient to fill up this gap of two miles, and for years the
traveling public have driven off the ends of these two turnpikes into
two miles of the deepest mud fordable. In Illinois there are no pikes
even, all dirt roads; roads that are to-day in the same condition
they were when the country was first settled; not a day's work has
ever been expended upon them. I passed farm after farm on which were
fine houses, large substantial barns and hundreds of heads of stock,
and every indication of a rich soil and worldly prosperity, and yet
the road directly in front of these farm-houses has remained in such
a condition for years, that for six months out of the twelve it is
really dangerous for man or beast to travel after dark. I stopped
one night in a fine brick house that in the East would cost four
or five thousand dollars, and yet this house could only be reached
by a lane in which the mud for six months in the year was hub deep,
and a fine fat sow with a litter of pigs had full possession of the
front yard, if such a mud hole could be called a yard. Another case
I remember where the houses, barns, and stock indicated the farmer's
prosperous condition, and yet there was no well, nothing but rain
water to drink. The fact is, all these things--and I could keep on
mentioning them to the end of the chapter--serve to illustrate the
intense Western desire for display to the neglect of comfort. The
stately domes of their numerous court-houses seen on all sides make a
big show. Their large barns with the farmer's name painted on the side
in red letters or shingled into the slate roof advertise the owner's
name and financial standing. Whatever is above ground, whatever can
be seen from a distance, whatever makes a great display receives
the cordial support of the average Westerner, but when you look for
a fine country road, free of toll gates, or a good, deep well, or a
nice cool cellar, or anything, no matter how much it might add to the
personal comfort of the possessor, but which is below the surface or
unseen from the surrounding country, you may look in vain for these
evidences of a moderately high state of civilization. The diet of
Western families is simply abominable. It is pork, fried pork, every
meal. Their meals are as monotonous as their scenery. A farmer, rich
in money, lands, and houses, will live for weeks on pork, when beef,
mutton, turkey, and chicken are in great abundance on all sides and
so cheap as to be almost unsalable. And yet, probably because their
stomachs are out of sight and the satisfying effect of a good square
meal is quieting and not of the spread-eagle effect, the farmers live
upon the freshest and plainest sort of food. If the Western stomach
could be inflated and placed in some commanding position it would
be supplied with the choicest viands and the farmers would pour out
their money to fill it to overflowing.

The other Sunday I came along to a meeting-house just after the
bell stopped tolling, and riding out under the shed, I slipped off
my knapsack, buttoned on a clean collar, put on my coat, and went
in as quietly as possible, but every one in church except one old
lady looked around at me, and I lost most of the Scripture lesson in
consequence of this counter attraction. From her actions, afterwards,
I think the said old lady was deaf and did not hear me come in, which
accounts for her apparent neglect. Soon after a portly old gentleman
came waddling up the opposite aisle, and after putting his hat, cane,
and numerous other articles of extra baggage over in the seat in front,
he held on to the back of that seat to break the fall, finally letting
go and sitting down like a trip hammer. He immediately began to box
the congregation, and had gone from east around to northwest, when he
fetched up against me and put me under close inspection for so long
that I wickedly comforted myself knowing that I gave him a crick in
the neck. Very soon many in the congregation with eyes reverently
closed and heads on one side in imitation of Alexander the Great,
were apparently absorbing their spiritual food through their mouths,
when the choir of eleven noises followed the sermon with "Asleep in
Jesus." The choir kept well together for a while, although one or
two had to feel around in advance for the first note, but the last
line was always too much for the tenor, and with their leader gone
all discipline vanished and they came leisurely home in squads,
three and four at a time. But slow and solemn as the singing was,
the organist broke loose during the interlude, scampered up and
down the scale, trilled, stumbled, snorted, and galloped off into
the lots so far I thought he never would get back, and during his
last escapade he stepped on a note that stuck, and that note loudly
persisted in being heard through the benediction and sometime after
the congregation had dispersed. When the organ breathed its last,
the boys, old and young, all came out to see me off, and stayed so
long it broke up the Sunday-school; so altogether, unintentionally,
I caused a good deal of trouble.

Going through Aurora I met two wheelmen, Messrs. G. O. and
Chas. W. Clayton, one of whom, but since my return I cannot tell which,
accompanied me for 10 or 12 miles on my way.

Three-fourths of the area of the State of Illinois--a State eleven
times as large as Connecticut--is underlaid with seams of soft coal,
and at Minonk, where I spent several days in visiting relatives, is
the most productive mine in the State. Over 700 tons a day are raised
from a depth of 500 feet, and the machinery works with such rapidity
that a ton of coal is raised and emptied in twenty-two seconds. After
screening, great quantities of the coal, smaller than chestnut size,
are sold to farmers, who feed it out to their hogs with beneficial
results. The refuse rock and clay from this mine is carried up an
inclined railroad and dumped, making a mound perhaps seventy-five
feet high. The inhabitants think it quite a treat to climb to the top,
they get such a grand view. It really is the highest point of land for
miles around, and the view of a town ten miles away is to them quite a
sight. Horses in droves in the lots or loose by the roadside are very
common, but there is one peculiarity that distinguishes them from all
the other domestic animals I have seen. The instant they catch sight
of the bicycle they invariably come boldly toward it half a dozen
paces and then turn and run like all the other animals. They seem
to want to find out as soon as possible the nature of the machine,
but their courage is short lived.

At Lacon I crossed the Illinois River, which was half a mile wide at
this point. The river is very sluggish, falling only one inch to the
mile for 300 miles.

During several days I had felt sleepy all the time, doubtless due
to overeating and lack of exercise in Chicago, and, so, frequently I
would lay down beside the road and sleep soundly for an hour or two,
the hard clay bed not disturbing my slumbers in the least. In fact
I had, by this time, become quite a veteran in this respect, being
able to rest peacefully anywhere I felt inclined to stop.

At Rock Island I left the State of Illinois, which has a high-license
system that works admirably, as far as I could judge from the
frequent inquiries made, and crossed the Mississippi River into the
prohibition State of Iowa. Imagine my surprise to find beer and liquor
sold as openly as soda water in the city of Davenport. The State
law is circumvented and nullified in this manner: The city council
passed a law obliging all dealers in soda water and like temperance
drinks to take out a license. If a man sells soda water, and nothing
stronger, this law is not enforced against him; but if he sells liquor
in connection with his soda he is prosecuted, not for selling liquor,
mind you, but for selling soda without a license. Thus, beer and liquor
is sold openly, and the city of Davenport has reaped a revenue of over
$3,000 from this source within a few weeks. Before I got through the
State of Iowa I could judge better of the practical workings of their
prohibitory law, but the first day in the State certainly puzzled
me. At one small village all the inhabitants seemed to be devoting the
whole time that day to dancing and drinking beer. They were Germans,
and it is needless to add that there was no downright drunkenness to
be seen there. Even in Grinnell, a place of 3,500 inhabitants, that
has never had an open saloon, the "boys" have their beer shipped in
to them on such occasions as Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.

Traveling alone as I have, most of the way, I could appreciate to a
limited extent the lonely task Thomas Stevens performed in crossing
this country as he did, but never have I realized until I reached
Iowa to what extent he had been shut out from nearly all intelligent
communication with human beings in his journey through Europe and Asia.

About one hundred miles west of Davenport is a settlement of
Bohemians. They number six or eight thousand, and their little
villages are scattered along the Iowa River for a distance of ten
miles or more. Their system of families is very much like the Shakers
in Enfield, Conn., and beside keeping their farms up in excellent
condition they manufacture woolen goods, starch, and some other
articles of commerce. But not one of them that I met could speak a
word of English, so that my experience for two or three hours was
in a slight degree like what Stevens suffered for many weeks and
months. All I could do was to make signs.

Although I left Connecticut before the grass had hardly begun to
turn, since then I have seen nothing else but one everlasting sea of
green. The country is more rolling in Iowa than in any of the States
west of New York through which I have passed, but that change in the
scenery was not of much relief. Thus far I had not seen the smallest
kind of a wild flower to break the monotony of that color, green,
dark and rich as it was. Imagine with what pleasure I came upon a
sandy ridge of hills that were covered with a beautiful variety of
wild flowers, whose colors seemed particularly bright to me, probably
because they were the first I had seen in seven weeks of outdoor
life. I spent an hour or more in picking flowers and in biting off
the sweet tips of honey-suckles.

It is curious how many old veterans the sight of the knapsack brings
to the surface. Very often when I lay it aside for a rest some one
will pick it up and try it on so handily that I know without his
telling me what his experience has been. And the recent speech of
that arch traitor, Jefferson Davis, stirs these old soldiers from
the top of their heads to the very soles of their feet. Imagine the
feelings of one of these, a large-framed, well-formed man of forty,
who walked around Minonk with me, up the coal shaft and down, without
much apparent difficulty, and yet this same man, John W. January,
suffered a thousand deaths at Andersonville, where his feet rotted
off, and where he was reduced to forty-five pounds in weight, his
bones alone almost weighing that much. Jeff. Davis's words don't
exactly stir him to the soles of his feet, but from the words he and
so many others, with whom I have talked, have indignantly uttered,
I think these old heroes are sorry they were not allowed to do up
the job more thoroughly at the time of the war.

The bicycle is getting to be more of a wonder the farther west it
goes. Everywhere I stop crowds quickly gather, and then the inevitable
string of questions! At Rutland, Ill., the landlord, who was a native
of Connecticut, gave me all I could eat, but would not let me go
till I had ridden all over the sidewalks and gutters in the town,
under his direction. A few miles east of Grinnell I found I could
not reach that place the night I was expected, so I took a freight
train. While waiting for the train the whole town came down to the
station, and to escape being almost bored to death I went out back
of the station to wash my hot feet. But still there was no rest. An
Irishman who lived in Hartford "thirty year ago," was the first to
find me, then two or three natives went through the same old list
of questions, and finally a colored gentleman came around to pay his
respects, just as I was wiping my refreshed feet on the grass. When
the train arrived I laid out on one of the long benches, placed along
the side of the caboose, and went fast to sleep, apparently. But at
every station there was something in the air that told the inhabitants
there was an object as strange as a wild man from Borneo on board,
and the caboose was quickly filled with a gaping crowd of men, women,
and children. One passenger who had already got some points of the
trip, related all he knew and more, too, to the assembly, and it
required considerable composure to keep on breathing regularly and
keep my eyes shut with some old woman looking right down into my face
and sighing for my lifeless condition, but as long as my eyes were
closed no one asked me any questions, and that was a great relief.

As this is a plain unembellished tale of a bicycle journey in which
facts are reported as they exist, not as we would like to have them,
I may as well acknowledge, though not without a twinge, that during
the first week out the chafing of a stocking strap brought out a
boil on the side of my leg. The next week a second comforter appeared
underneath that member, and painful as it is to acknowledge it (the
bitterest pangs are now past), in a few days some six or eight more
obtruded themselves, seriously interfering with the saddle. After some
days of dogged persistence in riding and trying to rise above them
(which efforts from the nature of the case were obviously futile),
I succumbed and pleaded for a ride on a freight train; and when that
gentleman passenger, who knew the real cause of my desire to take
the train, told a lady passenger who was very anxious to know, too,
that I took the train because--and he hesitated--because I "had got
hurt," his answer pleased me so I was sure the lady, who was looking
straight at me from the opposite side of the car, would think I
was writhing with pain even in my sleep. "Poor boy!" she responded,
sympathetically,--"How dreadful! I do hope he will recover!"

Distance traveled on the wheel, 1830 miles.








CHAPTER VIII.

ACROSS THE MISSOURI.


Cyclones are getting to be so common in this Western country that the
people are endeavoring to guard against them as they do against fire,
but with this difference: they do not try to protect their property
against the cyclone; it is useless; they simply wish to save their
lives, that is all. Insurance on property against loss by wind is
now customary all over the country, but if these cyclones increase in
frequency as they have in the past few years, it is only a question
of time when life insurance companies will consider it an extra risk
to live in this Western country. I experienced a feeling of nearness
to the cyclone that was sufficient when I read the accounts of the
terrible destruction of life and property in Ohio a few weeks ago,
for I had a delightful journey only a few days before through some of
the towns that were so soon afterwards swept away in a twinkling. But
my stay in Grinnell, of a couple of weeks, was like living on an
old battle-field. The dead, of course, have gone from sight, but the
wounded are to be seen on all sides. I went out calling and met an
old lady still suffering from an injury received four years ago. I
saw another go limping by and heard she had a hip broken at the same
time, and, while riding, I met a lady whose head was so crushed during
that terrible storm that she now has frequent spells of insanity. I
began to wonder if any one in Grinnell had escaped uninjured. Let the
clouds even now gather, black and threatening, and the people live
the awful experience of that night over again. The streets are soon
filled with women and children, carrying what few valuables they can,
all hurrying to some cave for safety. I crawled into one of these
caves one day. It was in the cellar of a fine residence, and is a room
not larger than six by eight feet, and not over four feet high, with
strong brick walls on the sides and heavy timbers overhead, and amply
ventilated, and into this small hole, not long ago, twenty-four women
and children huddled for two or three hours one night, some praying,
others crying, and all suffering from mortal fear as long as the storm
lasted. Almost every house in Grinnell that has a cellar has a cave of
some kind in it, a room boarded up and covered over thick with earth
to protect the occupants from falling bricks and timbers. Not only
here but all through the West a cave is now considered an essential
part to every dwelling. But think of the mental suffering the people
of these Western States endure whenever there is a severe storm or even
indications of one. If those Eastern people could see the photographic
views that I have seen of the destruction wrought by a Western cyclone,
they would never assign, as a cause of their complete demolition, the
flimsy manner in which the houses are built. If they could have seen
the two college buildings, one built of stone, the other of brick,
each as large and as solidly built as any Eastern edifice, if they
could have seen these two buildings demolished and crushed like so
many eggshells--in less than two minutes--what would they think of
the superior safety of our Eastern houses? How many frame houses
would stand such a blow? Everything was as calm and still as death
that terrible night when, without any premonitory roar or warning,
the cyclone struck the town like the report of a cannon, and in less
than five minutes it had finished its work, ending it as easily with
the two college buildings as it commenced it with the small frame
houses. Although it was early in the evening, fifty-eight persons were
instantly killed and many more wounded; but let it come again, day or
night, it will never catch Grinnell people unawares. They watch the
clouds to this day, as they would some fell demon hovering over them,
and the more timid ones early rush to their caves. Many outlandish lies
have been written about the power of the cyclone, but the cold fact,
the bare truth is more wonderful than any stories man can invent. One
only needs to come here and talk with the people about the cyclone to
be convinced that their experience for a few minutes was as terrible
as that of a great battle, and I was as fascinated with their stories
as I ever was talking with old soldiers.

"I should know you were an Easterner from your talk," is a remark I
hear on all sides, and so I have tried to learn what there is about
the talk of a native of New England that distinguishes him from people
west of there. It is not because he speaks so flat, for through New
York every one spoke more so than I could. I pronounced the town
of Fonda just as it is spelled, and yet every one there called it
"Fundy." Utica was "Utiky," Lima was "Limy," and everything else
was pronounced in the same flat manner. I supposed this to be a
peculiarity of New Englanders, but New Yorkers rather excel in that
style of speech. Out here in Iowa, where friends have an unflinching
frankness quite remarkable, they tell me whenever I say anything
particularly flat my nose flies up into the air to emphasize it. That
may be a trait peculiar to myself, but it is some comfort to know
that people outside of New England have lingual peculiarities as
marked as those coming from the Eastern States. In Ohio and Indiana
I met a great many persons who never pronounce the personal pronoun
"I" as we do. It is always "Ah" instead of "I." "Ah thought so,"
"Ah heard so." I supposed that was more Southern than Western; but
if so, many of Southern birth are now living in these States. The
farther West I go the more I notice the way they roll their R's. That
letter is brought out with a peculiar force in every word in which it
occurs. Here, there, however, harvest, horses, father, mother, and
all such words are spoken as if there were two or three r's in them
instead of one. Whenever they accost me it is "O, George," while in
the East it would be, "Say, George." Then two short grunts are very
often used out here instead of yes or no. Emphasize the first grunt
and it means no; emphasize the second, with a slightly rising accent,
and it means yes. This is a common form of expression, with colored
people everywhere, I think, but here, with white children, it is the
most common way of saying yes or no, and many older persons use it.

They have no brooks or streams here, but everything is called a
"crick," pronounced very short, too. That name is applied sometimes
to good-sized rivers. These peculiarities of speech do not seem to
be acquired by persons living here, who were born and brought up in
the East, but their children acquire them readily, and everywhere
on the trip, going and coming, I noticed these peculiarities more
in the talk of the women and children than in the men. I could only
account for this from the fact that men go out into the world more
and come in contact and consequently talk more with persons using
fewer provincialisms.

The students at the Iowa College in Grinnell had a field-day while
I was there, and during the games and races I could but notice
the striking difference between the features of these students and
those of Eastern young men. These Iowa boys have heads large and well
shaped enough, but their features are disproportionately large. Their
eyebrows are large and overhanging, their cheek bones are prominent,
their noses are heavy, mouths large, and under jaw bones strong
and marked. There is nothing brutal or exactly coarse about their
faces, but everything about them is large and heavy. I hardly saw a
small-featured, clean-cut, really refined face among the one hundred
and fifty young men.

The attendance at church in Grinnell is larger in proportion than in
any place in the East, probably. With a population of 3,500 the regular
attendance at the Congregational Church alone is eight or nine hundred.

When I left Grinnell, two members of their bicycle club, Messrs. Lee
Taylor and Geo. Lewis, accompanied me for twenty miles or more, and
although I was very glad of their company, the frequent tumbles they
took coasting, made me sorry they had undertaken the ride, with the
thermometer up in the nineties.

Iowa roads are decidedly better than those through Illinois. Although
there is the same system of repairing the highways in both States--the
ancient system of farmers working out their road tax where they
choose--yet Iowa farmers not only scrape their roads, but in many
places they were laying tiles along up the worst hills in order that
the roads might be drained in the spring. I saw more work done on
the roads the first afternoon in Iowa than I saw the whole week in
Illinois. And there is another thing to be said in favor of these
Western clay roads, roads that for hundreds of miles have been as
rough as any cobble street in a New England city (it is simply just
to give the devil his due), a rider can go within half an inch of
a clay rut and yet his wheel will not slide down into the rut. This
has saved me many a tumble.

Another thing: during dry spells, such as we are having throughout the
West now, the dust gets very fine but never very deep. The clay is so
tough it does not get cut up as much as our Eastern roads do during
a drought. But the coasting in Iowa, of which I expected so much, for
the country is a rolling prairie, was simply dangerous. The hills are
so full of hard hummocks, "dive holes" the wheelmen here call them,
that it shakes a fellow up terribly. Once I went off, going down a
steep hill at such a rate that my hands and knees struck the ground
simultaneously, and the knapsack tunked me on the back of the head
at about the same time, as if to remind me of man's fallen estate.

In almost every Western State the towns are just six miles square and
the roads cross each other at right angles at intervals of one mile;
consequently in traveling across the country diagonally, as I have
most of the time, it was necessary to travel much farther than if
the roads had been left as they were before the towns and counties
were laid out. Through Iowa the old stage road followed the "divide"
(what we call a ridge in the East) in many places, but when the towns
were laid out the road was made straight across the country, up and
down some very steep hills, in the western part of the State. The
log barns, pig pens, and corn cribs, so common in Ohio and Indiana,
disappear almost entirely in Illinois and Iowa, and instead appear
thatched barns and sheds. Poles are set in the ground and a cheap
frame fastened to them, the sides are perhaps covered with rough
sheathing boards and the roof thatched with hay; that constitutes
the most common barn to be seen in this part of the West. It is no
wonder so many cattle perish here during the severe winters. Heavy
timber is very scarce, which accounts for the lack of log cabins and
other log buildings.

Speaking about timber reminds me that they have no woods out here. They
always say "when you get through the timber" instead of when you
get through the woods. They don't have any swamps here either, they
are all "sloughs," pronounced "slews." When the Rock Island road was
first built it was a common sight on looking out of the car window
to see seams of coal near the surface in the cuts through which the
railroad ran. Now there are many farmers in Iowa who can go out and
dig up enough coal in a few minutes to last all day in their stoves.

Since I left Connecticut I have hardly seen a clear stream of
water. The Croton and Hudson Rivers were both very roily from the
heavy spring rains, and farther West the streams are muddy the year
round. Many times I have longed to strip and take a bath, but the
water was unfit for anything but hog wallows. I wonder if the black
soil and the consequently black muddy waters of these Western States
has had anything to do with the color of the hair on the hogs. A white
hog here in the West is as uncommon as a black hog in the East. When
this country was first settled the hogs were probably brought from
the East, and were white. Would wallowing in the black mud and water
for weeks and months during the hot summer season gradually change
the color of their hair to correspond to that of the soil in which
they spend so much of their time? This question must be left to the
evolutionists, who have explained, to their own satisfaction at least,
so many questions of a like nature.

The cultivation of small fruits in the West has assumed immense
proportions. Strawberries have glutted the markets to such an extent
that the price will hardly pay for the transportation. Five cents a
quart at retail has been the ruling price in many of these Western
cities. Blackberries, raspberries, and other small fruits will also be
very abundant. The extent to which the farm-work is done by machinery
is truly wonderful. The farmer rides while he plows, harrows, and
plants the corn, and the wheat is mostly sown in drills. The expense
of ditching the land has been very great, amounting in some cases to
ten dollars an acre, but now a machine digs the ditch, throws the dirt
one side, lays the tiling and covers it up again. Still later in the
season I shall probably see the wonderful harvesting machines. Fields
of corn containing from a hundred to one hundred and fifty acres are
common, in fact that is about the average crop raised by every farmer
here. But how they work! From 4 in the morning till 8 at night. They
would as soon think of stopping "to do the chores" in the middle of
the afternoon as at 6 o'clock. With all the help from the machinery
and horses, the Western farmer works very hard, much harder than the
New England farmer. And in Iowa he does not seem to be in very good
circumstances. His house is small and in poor repair, and his barns
are poorer still. With corn at 18 cents a bushel, wheat lower than
ever, butter 10 and 12 cents, eggs 8 cents, and all other farmers'
produce at like low figures, it requires immense crops to amount to
much of an income.

The people out here also raise large families of children. Such is
doubtless the case in all newly settled countries, but it is mentioned
as a curious fact that people who have lived childless in the East
for years, move out here, and immediately they are blessed with a
goodly number of healthy boys and girls.

The gilded dome of the capitol at Des Moines can be seen for eight or
ten miles in some directions, but the proportions of the dome are not
so graceful as those of our own in Connecticut. The outside diameter
is over 80 feet, with the inside 66 feet, while the height is 275
feet. The gilded part has a row of circular windows half way up, and
compared with our own the whole dome has a decidedly more "squatty"
appearance. The building is 240 by 360 feet, and inside is finished
very nicely. The staircases, door casings, wainscoting, pillars, and
panels are all or nearly all of genuine marble. In a country where
there are so many public buildings that are decorated inside with
imitations of every kind of marble known, it is quite refreshing to
see so much here that is real. Thirty-two kinds of marble are used
in the building. The house has only 100 members, the senate 50, the
increase in population making no difference in the number of members,
and yet the hall of the house is a very large room, 74 by 91 feet, and
47 feet high, and it is elegantly finished in marble, scagliola, and
black walnut. These pillars of scagliola on the sides of the room are
nearly as large as those at the entrance of our capitol at Hartford,
and are very dark and rich in color. This material can only be used
where there is little weight resting on the pillars for they are made
of plaster of Paris with an iron rod in the middle. This rod is placed
inside of a hollow cylinder, and plaster of Paris, variously colored,
and mixed with glue to prevent its hardening quickly, is packed around
it with occasionally a chunk of white plaster of Paris laid near the
outside of the pillar, when the pillar is taken out of the case, placed
in position and nicely polished, the various colors being brought
out with a most beautiful effect. The senate chamber is finished
in more elegant style, if anything, than the house, but it seemed
a pity to see in such a nicely furnished room, in the rear of the
president's chair, two large panels of a sickly green colored marble,
that were imitations of the real article, and very poor imitations,
too. But the structure taken as a whole is so well constructed, and
so nicely furnished, that it seems almost incredible that the cost
of the whole in its finished state will not be over $3,000,000.

In Western Iowa I encountered frequent steep hills, too steep for
safe coasting; and after rather ungracefully spinning down one of the
steepest, to the astonishment of on-looking pedestrians, I concluded
to take a railroad train to Omaha, which I reached in a few hours,
after completing my 1980th mile on the wheel.








CHAPTER IX.

AT THE BASE OF THE ROCKIES.


Omaha is booming as it never was before. Twenty years ago, when
Congress granted a charter to the Union Pacific Railroad Company,
the charter stated that the east bank of the Missouri River should be
the eastern terminus of the road, but as there was no bridge over the
river, the work of building the road naturally commenced on the west
side of the river, and this gave Omaha a start that it has improved
upon ever since. Council Bluffs, situated on the east side, about
three miles from the river, has always keenly felt the remarkable
success of its rival, and has used all its power to compel the Union
Pacific road to make the east side of the river the terminus; but
Omaha has thus far been, and the chances now are more strongly in
favor than ever of its always being, the practical terminus of the
road. When the bridge was built the Union Pacific trains were still
made up on the west side, until Council Bluffs threatened to apply to
Congress for the repeal of the charter, when a large transfer depot was
built on the east side, but, mark it, as far away from "the Bluffs"
and as near the river as possible. Now the stock-yards, which were
first built near the transfer depot, are being removed to Omaha,
wholesale firms are moving from the Bluffs over to the other side,
and, altogether, Council Bluffs is to be pitied; for, since it was a
good sized place itself, it has jealously seen its rival start from
nothing until now it is four times as large as itself.

The bridge, which was built soon after the road was finished, is now
found to be wholly inadequate, and a new double track bridge is soon to
take the place of the old one,--one not so very old either. It seems a
pity that so much labor should be rendered useless. The iron piers were
driven down, section by section, into the shifting bed of the river,
until men were working at the peril of their lives down seventy or
eighty feet below the water, and these piers rise sixty feet above
the river, and support an immense iron bridge; and yet all this labor
and much of the material will soon be dead property, for part of the
bridge has already been replaced by one with two tracks. The piers
of the new bridge are of stone and two of them are finished, having
been sunk to the same depth as the iron ones were. Probably the old
bridge being in position helps to facilitate the building of the new
one, but the old one will be all removed excepting the piers. The old
ferry-boats are gone now, and all teams are driven into the rear end of
a train of large box cars and thus taken across, leaving the train at
the opposite end from which they entered it. There is soon to be a new
Union depot at Omaha, built on an immense scale. The smelting works,
already the largest in the country, are being extended. The stock-yards
and packing houses are beginning to affect the Chicago business in
that line of trade; the wholesale houses are drawing business clear
from the Pacific coast; a new Board of Trade Building is being built,
besides many other fine blocks, and, altogether, things were never
booming more in Omaha than now. Most of their streets are of asphalt,
and a cable line of street cars is under contract.

I heard a fire alarm one day and expected to see fire engines go
tearing by, but not one did I see. They have no use for them in case
of fire. Their reservoirs are situated on so high a hill that the
force of the water is sufficient to throw a stream over the tallest
building. Only hose carriages and hook and ladder companies are
needed. The city water, pumped from the muddy Missouri, is really
the purest in the world. It comes two thousand miles from the Rocky
Mountains, and passes no city that can possibly defile the purity of
its immense volume. The fine sand is filtered from it, and the supply
will be never failing.

But the river itself has changed even more in its appearance than
the city, although that has grown from eighteen thousand to seventy
thousand in sixteen years; but these changes are much more noticeable
to me after an absence from the city of that length of time than
to residents. Then the river ran south along the bluff on the east
side of the valley, turned sharply to the northwest, and soon again
turned south close to Omaha; but ten years ago, during a high flood,
the river, in a single night, cut across this ox-bow of four miles in
length and only a mile wide, and commenced eating into the banks near
the Union Pacific railroad shops and smelting works. All the bags in
the country, for miles around, were brought to Omaha, filled with sand
and dumped into the river at this point, and engines, flat cars, and
hundreds of men were employed day and night, trying to hold the river
in check with immense rocks and broken stones. It was a hard fight,
but the sand bags and rocks finally conquered, and now the river is
roughly rip-rapped to a depth of nearly fifty feet and for a mile
in length. Sixteen years ago there was danger the river would cut
across near Council Bluffs, and leave Omaha high and dry three miles
to the west of it; but now there is more probability of its cutting
across six miles above, and coming down into the bend of the ox-bow
again. As it is now, this ox-bow is "Cut-off Lake," a clear body of
water that is much appreciated by boatmen and bathers. Even nature
seems to work on the side of Omaha.

There is a peculiarity of the clay soil here, very remarkable. In
the lowering and grading of streets incident to such a growing city,
many houses are left twenty and even twenty-five feet above the grade,
and yet when the soil is dug perpendicularly down within a foot of
the foundation of these houses, brick ones as well as frame, they
remain perfectly firm and secure for months and even years, a few
little creases only being worn, by the rains and frosts, down the
face of these walls of clay. The clay bluffs across the river, one or
two hundred feet high, are nearly perpendicular now in some places,
and yet they have been exposed to the weather for centuries, perhaps,
long before the pale-faced white settler knew of them at least.

After riding six hundred miles through the States of Illinois
and Iowa, over the prairies, both level and rolling, I am frank
to acknowledge that the prospect of five hundred miles more of the
same kind of scenery did not make me over enthusiastic to travel it
on my wheel. The riding, so far, has not been monotonous, and I did
not want it to become so. The object of the trip was not to make or
break records, and thus far, whenever I have found it desirable to
take a train, I have done so. But the ride through Nebraska would
be so very similar to what I had already experienced in Iowa, that
I thought a day's ride on the cars would do me no harm and the time
saved could be very profitably used in the mountains. The object of
my trip is to see the most of the country in the best possible way,
and thus far I think I have been fairly successful. The distance to
Omaha traveled by rail has been about 250 miles, and by wheel 2,000
miles, and the total expense, including about eight dollars car fare,
has been not quite forty dollars. This includes all repairs to wheel,
clothes, and every expense whatsoever. I probably have stopped over
night at farm-houses half the time, which has been the chief aid in
making the expense so light, but the accommodations have many times
been better than at some of the hotels. I have ridden till nearly dark
and then taken a hotel or farm-house, just as it happened. Much of
the time, seventy days, since leaving home has been spent in visiting
friends, but one can travel over the same route, in the same manner,
without a friend to visit on the way for less than a dollar a day.

Thus far I have been very lucky in not getting caught out in many
showers, and it really has rained very little where I have been. A
heavy rain at Omaha prevented further progress on the wheel, at least
for a few days, and decided me to take the train. Partly through the
influence of Mr. Charles M. Woodman, a wheelman, employed in the Union
Pacific office, I secured a ticket to Denver at reduced rates. A cap
has been the only thing I have worn on my head; the skin on my nose
has peeled off several times, and of course, my face and hands are
as brown as my seal-brown trousers. Even corduroy breeches could not
stand the pressure of those lumpy clay roads, and I have been obliged
to have them reseated with thick buckskin, dyed to match. My weight has
been reduced from fifteen to eighteen pounds, but a ravenous appetite
soon makes up for that reduction whenever I stop riding. The weight
of the knapsack is hardly noticed now.

I have written sometimes of the ignorance of the farmers in certain
sections of the West, and perhaps now it will be no more than fair to
refer to the utter lack of knowledge of their country of some persons
in Connecticut. Many thought snow drifts and mud would prevent any
wheeling outside of Connecticut for weeks after I started, but, as
far as I could see, the roads settle in "York State" as early as in
Connecticut. At any rate, I saw no snow or mud, unless it was up in the
mountains. Another thing that troubled some folks was how I should get
across the streams and rivers out West. The idea that occasionally I
might find a real bridge did not seem to enter their minds. The fact
is, not yet have I come to the smallest creek or pond of water but
which I crossed dry shod. Bridges are built here wherever they are
needed, just as they are in the East. Some Connecticut people went so
far as to doubt whether they had any roads out here at all. Many a one
asked me how I could ride across the prairie, and they seemed to take
it for granted I should ride upon the railroads, bumping along over
the half-covered ties. But strange as it may seem to those persons,
the people out here have horses and wagons, and ride over public
highways and bridges, very much the same as we do in the East. They
have churches and school-houses, Sunday-schools and revivals, morning
prayers and a blessing before meals, just as they do in staid old
New England. They are just as civilized and decidedly more open and
free hearted than in any part of Connecticut, only perhaps they are
not quite so refined; that is all the difference. To those who have
seen the Western people this talk may seem superfluous, but there
are many people in Connecticut, intelligent on every other subject,
who show supreme ignorance in regard to the manners and customs of
the people of their own country. And as for its being thinly settled,
any one can judge as to that when I say I have not been over half a
mile from a house at any time, unless it was up in the Highlands of
New York. There has been no more danger or difficulty in making the
trip than there is in traveling through New England. Thus far the
need of a revolver has never presented itself, neither has the idea
of getting one.

Well, I took the train at Omaha and was soon gliding swiftly through
the same rolling prairie that I had seen so much of in Iowa. But
these waves of green soon began to subside as the ocean does after
a storm, and the sun went down on a country as level and smooth as
the ocean itself. From the car window I could see the roads were
excellent--a mixture of sand and clay--but I did not regret that
I was on twelve wheels instead of two. The newsboys on the trains
out here are newsmen, full grown men. The one on the up train worked
steadily all the afternoon with his papers, books, oranges, bananas,
etc., and finally, when every one was tired of the very sight of him,
he brought in a basket of toys, and, sitting down on the arms of the
seats, amused the children in the car with snakes and jumping-jacks for
half an hour or more. Great liberty is allowed passengers traveling
such long distances, and little boys play leap-frog and perform all
sorts of gymnastic exercises in the aisle.

Along toward midnight the passengers had begun to thin out, and almost
every one had found a whole seat for himself, and had lain down with
his head or heels sticking out into the aisle. The conductor came
through occasionally, but was careful not to disturb any one, and in
picking his way along down this gauntlet of bare heads and big feet,
he would only hold up his lantern and peer into a face whenever that
head hung over into the aisle where a pair of boots projected half an
hour before. Everything had been quiet for some time, and the train at
midnight was running rapidly, when a low, plaintive moan issued forth
from the seat just ahead of me. The voice was rather low, at first,
and the sound was rather mournful. A head hung over into the aisle in
a very reckless manner, and the mouth was wide open, and yet there was
no complaint. The poor sufferer gradually raised his voice, and one
after another in the car had risen up and looked around till the car
once more seemed to be well filled with passengers. The somnorganist
ran up the scale, pulled out all the stops, and, doubled up as he was,
the knee-swell was used with powerful effect. It was soon becoming
evident that either the head would drop clear off and roll down the
aisle or that the bellows would burst, for the sound, loud as it was,
came out under great pressure, when a long suffering but very patient
passenger in a seat opposite jumped up and grabbing the poor fellow
by the shoulder almost yelled in his ear, "Look here, stranger,
do you know you have got the nightmare like a horse?" The roars of
laughter that followed were not diminished by the fact that the man
opposite did not realize he had said anything to cause it. I soon
found four seats together, and taking the cushions out and placing
them lengthwise of the car, made a very good bed, for I am so short
I could lie at full length.

The sun rose next morning over very much the same kind of a level
country, but snow-capped mountains were easily seen in the distance,
and a few hours later the train rolled into the station at Denver.








CHAPTER X.

ON PIKE'S PEAK.


We reached the top last night in a blinding snow and hail storm, with
the lightning snapping and cracking around our heads and the thunder
rolling around on all sides of us, below as well as above. But in
order to have it clearly understood how it came to be "we," and how
we came to get here, I must go back a little and give an account of
the trip since leaving the train at Denver.

The streets of that city are not paved, but they are so hard and smooth
most of the year that no one could find any fault with them. The fine
sand packs down very hard. The train which I took in Omaha reached
Denver so early in the morning that I found very few business
men at their stores and so I rode around the principal streets,
visited their fine county court-house, which must have cost in the
neighborhood of $300,000, and looked with wonder at the snow-capped
mountains to be seen at the end of every street, seemingly only a
few miles away to the north or west. Streams of clear water run down
the gutters of most of the streets, which gives to the city a very
cool and refreshed appearance. But one need not look to the streams
of water to feel revived; the very air was as crisp and cool as an
October morning in Connecticut. It became so cold in the cars the
night before that there was no sleep for any one not provided with
blankets to cover him, and they tell me this is a sample of their
weather all through the summer. In the middle of the day the sun is
hot, but in the shade it is never uncomfortable. It is a very dry
atmosphere, so that there is very little perspiration to be seen on
a person's face when exercising. For several weeks the salt sweat
has run down my forehead, in the heat of the day, and into my eyes,
making them smart and look glossy, but here the perspiration dries
before it can reach one's eyebrows. After being taken about the
city and entertained by Chief Consul Geo. F. Higgins (a royal good
fellow, light complexion, of medium height and build, and wearing a
moustache), and after being escorted out of the city by another member
of the club,--Mr. F. J. Chamard, also a light complexioned fellow,
we started on for Colorado Springs together. J. A. Hasley, a member
of the Kansas City Bicycle Club, reached Denver a few days before
I did, intending to take a trip in the same direction I was going,
and that is how we came to climb Pike's Peak together.

This chapter, and perhaps others to follow, will give our experiences
nearly in the order in which they occurred.

The first thing that surprised me was the sort of grazing country
to be seen on all sides. A farmer in Connecticut who would turn his
cattle out into such a scanty pasture to get a living would be a fit
subject for prosecution by the Humane Society. I had supposed that
Colorado was the finest grazing country in the world, and was never
more surprised than to see the dry, sandy, brown appearance of the
country. Only at a distance did it look green; close to, but a few
scanty bunches, or rather spears of grass could be seen. Actually, such
fields in the Eastern States would not be considered fit for even sheep
pastures. The only way the herds of horses and cattle get a living is
by traveling. They are at liberty to roam over thousands of acres,
and in that way manage to subsist. The winters are not very severe,
but it is no wonder so many cattle perish when the supply of grass,
scanty at the best, is covered with a few inches of snow. Irrigation
is carried on to a great extent, but from what I can see it was more
for the purpose of watering the stock than for bringing the land
up to a high state of cultivation. So far I have seen very little
land producing a fair crop of fodder, and that is all they intend to
raise. There is no turf to be seen growing naturally.

The ride south, from Denver to Colorado Springs, was over a very
fair road, although there was probably ten miles of walking in the
seventy-five miles. To the east of us was a level or slightly rolling
country, while on the other side the snow-covered mountains loomed
up apparently only twenty-five miles, but in reality seventy-five
miles away. Even the foot-hills, so called, mountains four and five
thousand feet above us, were twenty-five miles distant. Such is the
clearness of the atmosphere one would think he could walk over to
them in a couple of hours. That afternoon, just after the sun had sunk
beneath the snowy tops, we struck some Colorado mosquitoes. The first
intimation we had of their presence, while riding along at a lively
gait, was a prickling sensation all over the calves of our legs, and
my stockings were actually black with them. An Eastern mosquito will
usually be somewhat embarrassed in his business affairs by a slight
motion of the body or a wave of the hand, but these in Colorado are
not annoyed in the least by the circular motion of a flying wheelman's
legs, and will alight upon his calves and proceed to business with a
dispatch that is equaled nowhere else in the world. And be it said
to the credit of their excellent military discipline, they never
stop drilling or desert their post till they are crushed or brushed
away. Once I jumped from the machine in agony, and such a jar would
tend to dislodge an ordinary specimen of this kind of animal, but
not so with these; every one remained at work, and thirteen perished
at a time from one slap of my hand. Many a dismount resulted nearly
as disastrously to the enemy, but this cost too much in time, and
brushing away while riding was finally resorted to as the least
expensive means of warfare. They seemed to go in swarms like bees,
and made a noise nearly as loud. The next morning we rode through
another army of them, but the only lasting result of the whole fight
has been to give us a very satisfying occupation, whenever there was
nothing more important on hand, in scratching the different areas of
our legs below the knees and regularly returning to the same locality
always with renewed relish.

Prairie dogs were quite common along the road, and they would sit on
their little mounds and remonstrate with us in a squeaking voice for
disturbing them, till we were close upon them. Jack rabbits were not
so common, only three or four having been seen thus far.

That night we walked down a lane to a ranch to find shelter for the
night, when a horse, taking fright at our machines, tried to jump over
the gate at the foot of the lane, and in doing so, gate, horse, and all
came down in a heap together with a crash. The horse jumped up and went
off limping, but we thought the next ranch would be a safer place for
us, and so we kept on a couple of miles and got an excellent supper,
but our bed was on the floor in an old store-room. This slight hardship
was soon forgotten in the crisp, cool air of the next morning, and we
rode along, hugely enjoying the mountain scenery on our right, till
we met a drove of horses and cattle in the road, where barbed-wire
fences inclosed the highway on both sides. The horses took fright
first and stampeded down the road followed by the cows and calves,
the seventy-five or a hundred head leaving a great cloud of dust
behind them. The ranchman, who was driving them to water, tried his
best, with the vigorous use of his lungs and a shovel in his hands,
to stop them by running backwards and forwards across the road,
and after we had dismounted and gone clear out to the fence he
succeeded in driving them past us. Coming up all out of breath and
his eyes flashing with excitement, the full-bearded ranchman yelled,
"By J----s, you fellows will get shot down here before you go very
far with them things! If my horses had gone over that wire fence,
by J----s, I should have wanted to put a hole through you," then
cooling down a little at our expressed regrets, he said, oaths omitted,
"a while ago, coming from Denver with a load of oats, I met a couple
of fellows on their velocipedes and they were yelling and hollering,
and did not offer to stop. My horses saw them first, and started
down the hill as if nothing was hitched to them. They turned down the
railroad track and took that forty hundred of oats over those ties as
if they were feathers. I finally stopped them down in the cut, but I
was mad, you bet. Those dudes were strangers around here or they would
not have said what they did to me. They told me to go talk to a dog
and to do some other things. They did not know enough to keep their
mouths shut after they had got me into that fix. So I just pulled
my belt gun and held it up. 'Now,' says I, 'you just come back or
I will corral you. While I go out and stick up a couple of flags,
you just lay down those things and go and pack those bags of oats
out here into the road.' They wouldn't at first, but finally did,
and it did me good to see them New York dudes tugging away at them
300 pound sacks. I unhitched the horses and made them fellows pull
the wagon back and load the oats in again, but they emptied both
their bottles before they got through."

To appreciate this story, and the manner in which it was told, one
needs to hear it highly spiced, as it was with the huge oaths and many
of the strange expressions used out here. The conversation turned on
other subjects, and before he finally bade us "good luck," I learned
that droves of mares and a few stallions are turned out loose, and
in a short time each stallion has selected his drove of mares to look
after and guard, and no mare from any other drove will be allowed to
come near his drove. One day a mule tried to get near a drove and the
stallion was kept busy all day biting and driving that mule away,
who scampered off only to return again to bother the stallion so
much he had no chance to eat for hours. With cattle it is the same,
the bulls selecting their drove of cows to guard and none from any
other drove need apply for admission.

As we traveled south, the range of foot-hills turned to the east
until we rode along nearly at the base of them. The top of Pike's
Peak was plainly to be seen over these foot hills all day, and this
snow-covered peak seemed to travel south on the other side of this
range of hills just as fast as we did. It looked more like a hooded
ghost peering over the green hills at us than a mountain peak 14,000
feet high. As we rode along it would go out of sight behind a hill,
only to reappear again farther south, always keeping just so far
ahead of us. This game of hide and seek did not end till we reached
Colorado Springs, where the peak was directly west of us.

We had ridden but a few miles from Denver, when the thin air began to
affect me. Hill climbing was out of the question, and the smallest
patch of sand or the slightest up grade would make me puff like a
winded horse. I tried to breathe entirely through my nose, but the
suffocating feeling was unbearable, and so I rode along, mouth wide
open. The dry atmosphere parched my tongue and mouth, and my tongue,
shriveled to half its size, rattled around in my mouth like a wooden
spoon in a bowl. Again I tried to keep my mouth shut, but that was
impossible, so I made up my mind to get used to it, and rode miles
without any water. Even water would only keep my mouth moist a
short time.

We reached Palmer Lake, a pleasant resort 7,000 feet high, about
noon. This place is nearly 1,000 feet higher than either Denver
or Colorado Springs, and the grade descends both to the north
and south. The foot-hills, three or four thousand feet higher, are
close by to the west, and to the east the country is a rolling sea of
green. But the most beautiful sight of all is the wild flowers. White,
red, yellow, blue, purple, violet, in fact all the colors imaginable
are seen in great profusion on all sides, acres and acres of nothing
else, these beautiful little flowers not over three or four inches
high growing so closely together as to crowd out what little green
grass tried to grow there. In fact, while all the colors of the
rainbow but this one lived closely and happily together, green
seemed to be an outcast among them. And the colors which one would
naturally think would be pale and faded growing in such a dry and
sandy soil were just the opposite. I never saw such vivid colors. The
varieties were mostly foreign to me, but I shall always remember the
colors. Occasionally, rising above these fields of little flowers,
were red and white thistles, red and white cactuses, and Spanish
bayonets, or soap weed as they call it, all in full blossom, too.

I can't begin to describe the delightful ride down from Palmer
Lake. The coasting over a road, perfectly smooth, that wound around
and over little knolls that gave a wavy motion to the ride; this was
enjoyment enough in itself, but to go gliding along without using a
muscle in this delightful manner, and see the foot hills, perfectly
green to their tops, and the pure white peaks sparkling in the sun
rising just above them, all only a mile or two away seemingly, on the
right, and to the left these immense fields of the very brightest
and most beautiful flowers ever seen, growing close up to the road
and stretching out into the distance till their colors were lost in
the pale-green of the rolling prairie--to thus imperfectly describe
the scene is all I can do; one must see it to realize it.

Saturday morning, early, we reached Manitou, where water power
furnishes the hotels with electric lights, and started up Ute Pass
on our wheels, to visit the Grand Cavern. We were going to leave our
wheels and walk up, but a guide told us it was good riding over the
other side of this mountain, from the Cave of the Winds down through
Williams Cañon, back to Manitou; so we pushed the wheels up a mile
over a very good carriage road, six or eight hundred feet high,
to the Grand Cavern, with the intention of going across, but here
the fun commenced. The only way across was by a narrow trail, but
the guide at the cavern said it was all down hill, and so we kept
on. The trail went down the side of the mountains very steep, and we
had not gone far when it was evident it was the wrong trail, and so
back we started; but it took us both to get one wheel up at a time,
and the way it made us puff--well, strong as we both were it took every
ounce of strength we had to get back. After hunting around awhile we
found the right trail, and started on in the direction of Williams
Cañon, which was plainly to be seen just below. The trail came to an
end at the edge of the cañon, which was three or four hundred feet
straight down, but an immense hole, perhaps twenty-five feet across,
went down into the bowels of the mountain about two hundred feet,
to the entrance of the Cave of the Winds. Rickety ladders and shaky
stairs wound down around the inside of this hole, and down these we
must go with our wheels! Yes, the guide was right, it was down hill
with a vengeance. We took my wheel first, it being the lightest,
and Hasley went down a few rounds on the ladder and then took hold
of the big wheel and held it firm so that the rubber tire slid down
the ladder. I held on to the handle bar with one hand and the ladder
with the other, and thus we reached the bottom of the first ladder,
step by step, but safely. The next pair of steep stairs went under
the shelving rocks so close that there was not room to get the wheel
down, and so we lifted it over the edge of the railing, and I let
it down as far as I could with one hand, and Hasley ran down to the
next stairs underneath and caught the wheel as I let go. The rest of
the stairs were not so steep, but a single misstep at any time would
have sent us all to the bottom of this hole in unseemly haste. Getting
Hasley's wheel down was a repetition of our first experience, only his
was heavier, and the stairs creaked more, and it was more difficult
to get his machine over the railing and let it down at arm's length,
to be caught by the other underneath; but at the entrance of the cave,
stairs led down under a boulder, suspended as that one was at the Flume
in the White Mountains, and out into the daylight of the cañon, and
we were soon down in the road, hardly realizing how we had got there.

The scenery down the cañon was so grand, and the whole trip was so
exciting, that we did not regret at the end that we had taken our
wheels where no other wheels have ever been, and where no other wheels
ever ought to be taken again.

While we were taking a late breakfast at the Cliff House at
Manitou--Manitou is at the very base and almost surrounded by
mountains--a young gentleman asked us if we would escort two young
ladies up to the top of Pike's Peak, and of course we were only too
glad to have the opportunity. But at the last moment one of the ladies
refused to go, because it would prevent her attending the first hop of
the season; and the other lady who was so enthusiastic that her sense
of propriety barely prevailed over her intense desire to climb up the
peak, said, sadly disappointed, as she left us: "Now I will go up to
my room and have a good cry," and her eyes were already running over.

The scenery up the ravine for two or three miles was magnificent,
huge boulders filling the gorge, down which a good-sized stream went
dashing over and under these boulders in every conceivable manner. In
fact, the sides of the mountains up a thousand feet, were covered with
huge boulders just on the point of rolling down, and once in a while
between them we could catch a glimpse of the country below. Five miles
up the trail, which is a very good foot path, is the Half Way House,
and we felt much encouraged to find it had taken us only two hours. But
from there up, for four miles, the trail went through timber mostly,
and we began to get winded. Hasley kept his mouth shut most of the
time, which I could not do from the first; but for two hours we had
not a drop of water to drink.

Just below timber line, which is 12,000 feet above the sea, we met
parties coming down, three and four at a time, and they encouraged
us by saying: "Only four miles farther," "Keep your strength for the
last two miles," "You will have to leave the trail the last mile and
follow the telegraph poles up over the snow." Still our legs held out
all right, but I began to get dizzy whenever I looked up or stooped to
drink at a running stream of snow-water. Finally, snow was the only
thing to moisten our mouths, but we both drank or ate very sparingly
of this. About one thousand feet above timber line we had to cross
snow-drifts one or two hundred feet across, and very soon our feet
were cold and wet. Sometimes the snow would let us down to our hips,
and then we would wallow along to some projecting rocks and climb
up. This took my breath the worst of anything, and I laid down on
the rocks, completely exhausted sometimes.

About this time a snow-storm commenced, and the wind blew so cold we
could only stop a short time to get our wind. The flashes of lightning
were getting to be altogether too frequent to be pleasant, and the snow
and hail were so blinding we could scarcely see from one telegraph
pole to another, for now we had left the trail, and were climbing
straight up the side of the peak, with nothing in sight but rocks and
boulders half covered with snow. Sometimes we slipped down through
these boulders, and then after crawling out, the only thing to do was
to lie down with our backs to the driving storm and get rested. When
I started on again it was to stagger like a drunken man, for I was
dizzy most of the last mile all the time. When we were sure the top
must be just over the brow of the steep hill we were slowly climbing,
we finally reached there only to see those telegraph poles leading
almost straight up into the air and out of sight up the steepest
and most rocky hill we had yet encountered. Once in the blinding
snow-storm we lost track of the poles, but it was only because one had
been blown down, and the next was hidden entirely from view. Finally,
after crawling, staggering, and climbing up and over the last mile of
rocks, and using up an hour and a half in doing it, I caught sight of a
big stone house through the fog and snow, and yelled to Hasley with all
the strength I had left, and that wasn't much: "Look at the chimneys."

Those who have done any mountain climbing can better imagine our
feelings at that moment than I can describe them. Much as we regretted
it at first, how thankful we were those ladies had not started up
with us, for we never could have reached the top with them. But, as
if to repay us for being deprived of their presence, those beautiful
little wild flowers accompanied us all the way up, growing brighter in
color, if that were possible, the higher up they grew, until on the
very top of the peak, 14,147 feet above the sea, we picked a lovely
little bouquet from beneath a few inches of snow. These tiny flowers,
not more than an inch in height, grow close to a melting drift of
snow and ice wherever there is the least bit of sand or soil to
nourish them. The two signal service men, Messrs. Ramsay and Potter,
did everything possible for us, and in a very short time we were
ourselves again. These two men were so kind and considerate toward
us, and made us feel so much at home, that we concluded to prolong
our stay on the summit until Monday.

Distance traveled on the wheel, 2,075 miles.








CHAPTER XI.

BACK TO DENVER.


"The sun is about to rise," whispered Mr. Ramsay, as he softly
opened our room door and then disappeared. Mr. John P. Ramsay is the
Government signal officer in charge of the station at Pike's Peak, a
young wheelman that everyone likes from the first. We were sleeping
soundly in a comfortable bed on the top of the Peak this Sunday
morning, entirely oblivious of the somewhat severe experience we
had in climbing, the afternoon before, but at the first sound of the
call we jumped out of bed, slipped on our shoes, and, wrapping some
heavy blankets around us, went out the east door and stood on a mat,
which was frozen stiff, and where the wind blew about our bare legs
and up the folds of the blanket with decidedly too much freedom. We
waited there fifteen or twenty minutes, shaking from head to foot,
but the sight amply repaid for the discomfort. The sun was sending
great broad streamers up into the sky, and a bank of black clouds,
which in the distance looked like a range of mountains, still hid the
sun from view. We looked over the brow of Pike's Peak, which, on top,
is nothing but huge boulders and rocks imbedded in banks of snow, down
upon other peaks twelve or thirteen thousand feet high surrounding
us on all sides, and looking cold and black in the dim light of the
morning. At the base of the Peak on which we stood the level plains
stretched out probably 150 miles to the east, where a band of gold
was just beginning to gild that bank of clouds. No fog, or mist;
nothing obstructed the view in any direction, and everything, even in
the darkness, seemed to stand out with peculiar clearness. Soon the
broad streamers faded away, the band of gold rendered more dazzling
by the blackness of the clouds, began to widen till the whole bank
of clouds seemed to be one mountain of gold. Finally, after a long
while, as it seemed to us shivering in the cold, the upper outlines
of the sun could just be seen through the fiery clouds, and when the
round ball stood out clear and distinct above the clouds we crawled
back to bed and to sleep. Is seems almost useless to try to describe
such a scene, for no one can get an idea of the sight from the most
perfect description.

The house up there, built of stone, contains six good-sized rooms. Six
or eight persons can be comfortably housed over night, and no one
who has experienced the difficulties of the climb would complain
of the food, for we had a variety and it was well cooked. I sat out
doors nearly all day in the warm sun and the view was not hidden till
nearly night. We could look down into the streets of Colorado Springs,
fifteen miles away, almost as one would upon a checker board.

During the day several parties came up, some on horses, to within a
mile and a half of the top, where snow covers the trail and renders
further progress on horseback impossible, but everyone looked pale and
exhausted. Hot coffee brought them around all right in a short time. A
party of us went over to the north side of the Peak and tumbled rocks
down the side. Some of these went crashing down nearly two thousand
feet before they stopped.

During the afternoon clouds gathered, but just before sunset the sun
came out and the shadow of the Peak was plainly seen against the
clouds to the east. Even the shadow of the square stone house was
discerned, and then two of us went out to one end of the house, and
surely, there we were, standing like the spectres of the Brocken near
the shadow of the house, out over the plains twenty-five miles away
and fourteen thousand feet above the ground. To be sure our shadows
were not as clean cut as though we were nearer the object on which
the shadows were cast, but anyone could see the general form.

About 9 o'clock that night a terrific thunder storm raged out over the
plains to the northeast. The highest clouds were not much above, and
most of them far below us. We heard none of the thunder and saw very
little of the lightning as it flashed, but the whole mass of clouds
was lighted up incessantly. It was a grand sight. The whole sky to the
north, west, and south, was perfectly clear, and the stars shone out
with remarkable clearness, notwithstanding the full moon was shining
so brightly and placidly out over the plains to the east. Everywhere
else the world was at peace, but in the northeast those clouds made
silver by the light of the moon, were rolling and tumbling and were
constantly lighted by the fiery flashes of lightning. And yet not a
sound was to be heard. There was no wind, and everything above and
below was so quiet and still. And from the northeast, where we could
see such a great commotion, there was not the faintest sound. If
there had been no clouds anywhere that night the stillness would
have seemed natural enough, but to see such a terrific storm raging
(and I never saw lightning before), and to see the wind tearing those
clouds all to pieces, and yet to have everything so silent you could
almost hear yourself think, that was a most weird situation.

The weather on Pike's Peak is hardly more severe than it is below, even
during the winter. For severity, it is not to be compared with that
of Mt. Washington. The wind never blows harder than seventy-five or
eighty miles an hour. The roof of the house is a common tin one. They
keep up a wood fire the year round. The telegraph wires are not kept
in repair, so the weather reports are only sent in by rail. Pike's
Peak is not in reality a very important weather station.

As if to give us one more startling effect before we started down,
the next morning opened cloudy. The morning before we seemed to be on
the edge of some great ocean that stretched out to the east as far as
the eye could reach, but now we were cast away at sea ourselves. The
clouds covered the whole earth in all directions and were so solid
and motionless that they looked like one great sea of light gray
marble, beautifully carved and polished, but we were high above this
sea of marble, and were looking down upon it. The sun had just risen
above it when I opened my eyes, and I could hardly believe what they
told me. The light brought out every line and feature of the glassy
clouds, and the peak on which we were was, apparently, only about
2,000 feet above the level of this sea, for it surrounded us on all
sides. Occasionally, here and there, other peaks pierced through the
clouds like so many rocky islands, but there was not a rift anywhere
to indicate that there was a beautiful earth beneath this great ocean
of gray, polished marble, solid enough apparently to walk upon. Very
soon the sun took the polish off the clouds, and before long they
grew fleecy and soon broke up and passed away.

Leaving our friends at the top with regret, for I could have spent a
month there with the utmost enjoyment, we started down and reached
the base, without trouble or fatigue, in three hours and a half, a
journey of twelve miles that consumed seven hours in going up, besides
using the last ounce of strength we had in doing it, too. Coming
down we picked a few flowers near the top to send home, but every
few yards a new variety showed itself, and of course we had to get
a few of that kind, too, till our hands were full of the beautiful
tiny little things. Then we swore off and would not pick another one;
but then another variety, prettier than any of the others, peeped
up at us between the rocks, and before we came down to timber line,
12,000 feet above the sea, pockets, hands, and hats were full of the
bright colored little flowers. After a hearty meal at the Cliff House
we mounted, and our machines were so thoroughly rested they almost
ran away with us down the grade out of Manitou.

To the Garden of the Gods next. All along the base of the mountains,
from Denver south for seventy-five miles, are immense slabs of red and
white sandstone projecting into the air edgewise, and running parallel
with the range of mountains. Some of these slabs must have been 500
or 1,000 feet high originally, but the action of the rain and frost
on their crumbling nature has reduced many of them to steep ridges
of red and white soil, along the center of which runs the remnant of
the original slab, looking like the backbone of some pre-historic
animal. In the Garden of the Gods a few of these slabs remain with
very little debris about their base. Some of them, five or six
hundred feet long, stick right up into the air three or four hundred
feet high, and they are so honey-combed and the edges so rounded and
worn, that the action of water is plainly to be seen on them. No one
can visit this part of the country without being impressed with the
idea that these mountains were once the rocky shores of an immense
ocean and the incessant action of the waves has wrought out all the
curious-shaped rocks and ledges which make Colorado so celebrated. But
when the subject is broached as to what force in nature was powerful
enough to turn these strata of rocks up edgewise in the first place,
a traveling wheelman drops that subject as he would an ichthyosaurus.

Glen Eyrie is another place about a mile above, that abounds in these
same slabs, not so large, and more slender and needle shaped. This
place is private property and is nicely fixed up with drives, trout
ponds, and fountains. The drives through these places of interest
are very fine, and when we started back to Colorado Springs over
a high, level road, running along a high ridge, the wind sent us
along as we never rode before. On the level, a brake was necessary,
and we even went coasting up good steep grades. This kind of riding
lasted for nearly five miles, and was enjoyed intensely, but after a
short stop at the "Springs" with a few very enthusiastic wheelmen,
among them Messrs. Walker and Parsons, we turned about for Denver,
and faced that same strong wind for fifteen miles, till we found
a good resting place for the night at a ranch, which is simply
a good farm-house. The next morning after we got over the divide,
near Palmer Lake, the wind sent us flying again down the grade. Such
coasting! Sometimes side by side, at other times in single file, we
passed the fields of wild flowers that seemed to have improved since
we last saw them; for the pale yellow blossoms of the cactus plants,
as large as the palm of our hand, were much more numerous than a few
days before. Then we scattered horses and colts, cows and calves, in
all directions; dreadfully scared the poor little prairie dogs that
were caught away from home, and made the others who were perched on
their mounds, terribly excited. The little animals sometimes dig their
holes in the middle of the road, and as we went noiselessly along,
we thought we might sometimes catch them unawares, but no. Prairie
dogs have ears. They always heard us coming, and would keep up a
constant squeaking noise till the last minute, and sometimes after
they had dodged out of sight they would pop their heads up once more,
utter one last squeak, and disappear for good.

I have often wondered why so many plants grow here supplied with
thorns and sharp pointed leaves. There are the thistles, cactus,
Spanish bayonet, and two or three other species, the names of which
are unknown to me, but the extent to which their sharp points will
penetrate a wheelman's stockings can be accurately stated; even the
spears of grass are as sharp pointed as a needle. They do say that
sheep will eat the cactus at certain times in the year. It is not
stated at just what period in their existence the sheep do this, but
it is probably a short time before they cease to exist. When their
bill of fare is limited to a single article of diet, men have been
known to eat obnoxious things, and probably the sheep eat the cactus
for the same reason. O yes, Colorado is a great grazing country, noted
for being such. It is also noted for being a country where sometimes
forty per cent. of the stock die in a single winter, simply because
there is nothing to eat. The land will not produce enough to keep them
alive. Let the snow come a few inches deeper than usual, and the only
thing for the stock is to starve to death. The ranchmen don't pretend
to house their stock or store up fodder enough to keep them alive when
the snow has covered the few spears of grass too deep to be uncovered
by pawing. I am told that horses, raised in a warm climate, do not
know enough at first when turned out into a field covered with snow,
to paw the snow away and nibble the grass underneath, but they soon
learn to do so from seeing others, but even pawing does not always
save the poor creatures. I was agreeably surprised, in talking with
a ranchman, to hear him express himself strongly in favor of a law to
prevent anyone raising more stock than he could house and feed during
the winter. The desert of Sahara, judging from what I have read, is
nearly as good for farming as that part of Colorado I have seen is for
stock raising. New York tenement houses and Colorado stock farms are
equally good for producing young lives and for killing them off young,
too. The ranchman who expressed a desire to put a hole through us for
scaring his horses on our way down to the Springs, now recognized and
waved his hand to us as we returned. We stopped at a farm-house to get
some milk, and while waiting in the dining-room I noticed with surprise
well-worn books in the book case, such as "Draper's Intellectual
Development of Europe," "Geographical Distribution of Animals," by
Wallace, "Elements of Geology," by Le Conte, "English Men of Letters,"
by Morley, other books by Geike, and many more of like nature. Think
of such books as these being read out here on a Colorado ranch, 2,200
miles away from the intellectual hub of the universe! I am sorry to
say the ranchman by birth is not an American, but an Englishman.

A little farther on, and we overtook a lady on horseback. She did not
hear us, but the horse did, and began to act skittish, and not knowing
what to make of his actions the lady jumped off. We got by without
much trouble, however, but it would never do to ride on leaving the
lady dismounted. Here was a state of things. Not a house in sight
for miles over the level prairie, not a wagon, box, or anything but a
barbed-wire fence to assist the lady to regain the saddle, and with
her long riding habit it was impossible to do it alone. One thing,
and only one thing could be done. One of us must clasp his hands
together on his knee, and in thus making a step for her, help her
to mount into the saddle. Now, there were two of us, one tall, the
other short. For her to step up on the knee of the taller one would
be more difficult than to step up on the knee of the shorter one. So
it fell to the lot of the embarrassed writer to do the service. The
lady mounted easily to the saddle and we left her.

On reaching Denver and looking back over the trip, I felt I had
accomplished all and more than I really expected to do when I left
home. Not but that I had a strong desire before I started to see the
wonders in California, but I thought if I reached Pike's Peak, it
would be doing a great deal, all I felt confident of doing then. But
now that I reached the goal of my spring ambition so easily, no small
consideration would induce me to turn back. I was in better physical
condition than when I left home, and the farther I went the more
confidence it gave me to continue the journey across to the Pacific.

Distance on the wheel, 2,158 miles.








CHAPTER XII.

ACROSS THE PLAINS.


Until now I had expressed a valise, with extra baggage, along to the
different cities, but found I could carry everything I needed in the
knapsack; and so, leaving the rubber suit behind with the valise,
for I was entering a rainless district, and putting on a thinner pair
of trousers, I left Denver on the 24th of June.

We started on again, in a northerly direction, accompanied for
several miles by Mr. J. W. Bryant, and reached Longmont, after a ride
of thirty-five miles over miserable roads, rendered more miserable
by the water that overflows them from the numerous ditches along the
way. Here we found that a ride back to the southwest, to Boulder, and
into the mining regions of Boulder County, would make a pleasant little
side excursion, and so the next noon we rode over to Boulder, twenty
miles, and stopped an hour or so at one of the sampling works. Here
large quantities of ore are bought off the miners, and crushed and
ground fine as flour, ready to be shipped to the smelting works at
Denver and other points.

The process of finding the amount of gold or silver in a sample of
ore is very interesting. After the ore is reduced to a fine powder,
a small quantity of it, perhaps a teaspoonful, is nicely weighed out,
and put into an earthern saucer, with perhaps ten times that amount
of lead ore in the same powdered state. The saucer is placed in a
furnace, and the lead soon absorbs the gold and silver and settles
to the bottom, leaving the worthless part of the powder to rise to
the top in the shape of dark-colored glass. This button of lead,
with the gold and silver absorbed in it, is then placed in a little
cup made of burnt bone. This cup is then placed in the furnace and
the bone absorbs all the lead, leaving a speck of the precious metal
about as large as the head of a small pin. The gold and silver are
then separated by placing this speck in nitric acid, which absorbs
the silver, and the pure gold is left in the bottom of the glass. I
understand that this process, on a small scale, is practically the
same as that employed at the large smelting works. In this way miners
can find out at a very little expense just what their ore is worth
per ton from a comparatively small sample.

We started up Boulder Cañon, a gorge in the mountain that is very
picturesque, but whose sides are not so perpendicular as those of
Williams Cañon at Manitou. We rode and walked up this cañon nine miles
to Salina, where we stayed at night. A large stream comes roaring
down the cañon, and the narrow gauge track of the Colorado Central
Railroad goes up at a very steep grade. The course of the stream is
so crooked and the cañon so narrow, that in the nine miles there
are over fifty railroad bridges. All along up the cañon the sides
of the mountain are fairly honey-combed with holes, dug during the
mining excitement in 1859, and since, but now the holes, shanties,
and everything about the region seems to be deserted.

Salina is a genuine mining town of perhaps a hundred inhabitants,
and entirely different from anything that I expected. I supposed that
even now a man took his life in his hands when he visited one of these
mining towns, but during the evening, and all the time we were there,
the place was as quiet and peaceable as any New England town--decidedly
more so than any factory village. I saw many well-dressed young ladies
and gentlemen all going in one direction, and found it was the night
for the temperance lodge to meet, and that the members include all
but about a dozen persons in the community. During the evening two
little boys at the boarding-house seemed to want to get acquainted,
and so I asked one how old he was. "My brother is eight years old,
and I am ten days older than he is," he answered. How that could be
the little fellow was unable to explain, and so am I.

The next morning we visited the First National Mine, which, to all
outward appearances, is nothing more than a small shanty up the
side of the mountain, with a heap of rocks thrown out to one side of
it. Inside is a hole in the floor just large enough for a half barrel
bucket to go through, and beside this hole is a trap-door just large
enough to let a man's body down. The rocks are raised by a windlass
run by horse power outside.

With old coats and hats on and a lighted candle in our hands, we
followed the overseer down through the trap-door. The ladders down
which we climbed were straight up and down, and about all I could see
as I followed the others was the light of their candles. About once
in fifty feet we came to a platform and then started down another
ladder. The ladders went close to one side of the shaft, which was
protected with heavy timbers on the sides, and on the other side was
the hole down which the bucket went, two hundred and fifteen feet,
to the bottom. It was rather awkward holding on to the rounds of the
ladder with a candle in one hand, but I kept a firm grip till the
rounds began to get slippery from the mud and water, and then the
descent was anything but pleasant. Sometimes the ladders, instead
of going straight down, leaned over from the top a little, and then
it was hard work to keep my feet from slipping off. It was so dark
in there I could only see the black bucket hole on one side and the
two lighted candles beneath me, and how far down a fellow would go,
should his hands or feet slip off the slimy rounds, I had no idea; only
I know every nerve in my body was strung up and every muscle was hard.

At last, and it seemed an age, we got down to where the men were
working. Two hundred feet down, tunnels, just large enough for men to
work in, were run out in opposite directions, and at the ends of these
tunnels the men were drilling and blasting. And what were these men
after, down in this hole in the solid rock, over two hundred feet from
the surface? Simply to get out a little narrow streak of dark-colored
rock, not over two or three inches wide. This little streak went
nearly straight down into the earth, and these men were following it
wherever it went, excavating probably fifty tons of refuse rock in
order to get one ton of the ore sufficiently valuable to work up.

Then we started up, and as I was the last to go up I was wondering all
the way if I could keep my hold on the rounds if one of the others
should slip and drop on me; but they did not have occasion to test
my grip in that way, and we reached the top all right, only I had
to stop and rest once, more because of the nervous excitement than
anything else, and then you can imagine my feeling, suspended over
that black hole with just strength to keep from falling, but with
none to go higher. The memory of that experience will never be very
pleasant to me.

Up three miles farther into the mountains and we came to Gold Hill,
another mining town, full of saloons, but otherwise harmless, then down
Left Hand Cañon, over a very fair road, out upon the plains again,
and back to Longmont. On our way back we stripped off our clothes
and took a bath in one of the ditches near the road.

A pleasant ride the next day of thirty miles brought us to Fort
Collins, where I found many former residents of Connecticut.

The mosquito record of thirteen killed at one slap has been broken
several times since reference was last made to the subject. The
mosquitoes, which swarm everywhere, rarely trouble us about the
hands or head, but the revolving motion of the legs seem to attract
them, and they collect on our stockings in regular military array,
every one headed toward the knee--of all the hundreds, and perhaps
thousands, that have alighted on us, we never have seen one headed
the other way--and many of them in straight lines, four and six in a
row. Once, after enduring the pricking sensation as long as I could,
I jumped off my wheel, and with a single slap on each stocking put
thirty-two of the sweet singing little creatures on their way to the
place where everybody sings. This was the result of the first two
blows, and there were several outlying sections to be heard from that
increased this number somewhat, for a Colorado mosquito that escapes
death the first slap is sure to wait for the second one. In fact,
one could almost tell the size of my hand by the area of crushed
mosquitoes on my stockings, which was almost entirely surrounded
by those still waiting and working. The reader may say the habits
of these mosquitoes are of little interest to him, but to me the
mosquitoes had points of keen interest about them.

The number of light complexioned men in Colorado is very noticeable. I
began to observe it at Denver and at Colorado Springs, and at Manitou
it was even more marked, till it seemed as if every man, woman,
and child had light, very light-blue eyes, and a light moustache;
that is, every one that wears a moustache of any color. Wheelmen,
guides, cowboys, they all had the same smiling blue eyes that seemed
to win one's confidence at the outset. Denver is noted for having many
confidence men and bunco steerers, but there is no class of men I would
sooner trust myself with than the ranchmen, guides, and cowboys of
Colorado. They like to open one's eyes by telling what they have done
in the past, but in the mountains, mines, or on the plains a traveler
is as safe in their hands as he would be in any city in the East.

There is a decided improvement in the general aspect of the country
north of Denver, through Longmont and Fort Collins, upon what
we saw south of that city for seventy-five miles. There is less
stock-raising and more farming. We passed many fields of wheat,
corn, and alfalfa. The latter is of the same nature as red clover and
grows nearly as high as herdsgrass. Once sown it never needs to be
restocked, and three and sometimes four large crops are cut from it
during the season. It is almost impossible to plow it up when once
it is thoroughly rooted, and one person told me the roots would go
down into the ground nearly fifty feet in search of moisture. I give
this as a Colorado li--statement. But the only thing that will kill
it out is water, too much of it, for it can be drowned out, finally.

This brings me to the most important interest of Colorado, and that is
water. Nearly all through the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and
Iowa, through which I have ridden, States from seven to eleven times
as large as Connecticut, the great question that directly interests
all the farmers, and that indirectly concerns every one dependent upon
the success of farming, is how to get rid of the water. In some of
those States great ditches, six, eight, or ten feet deep, and miles in
length, are dug, and smaller ditches and tile drains lead into these
main channels, and thus in the spring the water to a great extent is
drained away, so that the land will dry off and be fit to cultivate.

But the cost of this system of drains and ditches is very great,
amounting on some farms to ten dollars an acre. But in Colorado,
a State over twenty times as large as Connecticut, water is the one
subject uppermost in the minds of the people, as it is farther east,
but here it is how to get it, not how to get rid of it. There is the
same system of large ditches running for miles and miles through the
country, and these are tapped at convenient points by smaller ditches,
so that the water is spread out over the sandy, barren-looking
country, till by reversing the means used in those other States,
the land is brought up into a high state of cultivation. And it does
seem as if they even reverse the laws of gravitation, and make the
water run up hill, for many and many a ditch seems to go up over and
around a hill that is higher than the head of the ditch. There is
one advantage, too, the farmers here have over those farther east,
and that is, they can have a wet or dry season, just as they choose,
for the supply of ditch water is never failing. These main ditches
are dug by stock companies, and the stock is in the market just
as other stocks are. The water privileges are sold to the farmers,
and in some cases the price is twelve to fifteen dollars an acre for
perpetual lease. It is singular that in one section of the country
it should cost nearly as much per acre to get rid of the water as it
does in other sections to procure it.

But this ditch water is a great boon to the people in other respects
than for agricultural purposes, and that is for drinking. At first I
always preferred the well-water, but as I traveled up into the alkali
districts the ditch water was much more wholesome to drink, and now I
shun everything else. To be treated to ice-water at a farmer's house,
appeared at first rather extravagant on their part, but the ditch
water in summer gets so warm, ice-water is almost a necessity. Still,
a barrel full of this roily water bailed up in the morning and placed
in the shade or down cellar and allowed to settle, will remain pure
and palatable for a long while. At one ranch where we stopped, the
drinking water was brought nine miles, although a well of alkali water
was near the house. At another house I was pulling up the bucket over
a pulley, and thought the bucket would never reach the top, when the
rope broke, and down went the bucket, 140 feet to the bottom of the
well that was not even curbed or stoned up. It is needless to say we
did not stop to get the bucket out or to get a drink.

The annual rainfall is not only increasing in Iowa and Nebraska, but
in Colorado also. It is a true saying, civilization brings rain. In
the former States it is the natural result of the breaking up of so
much prairie land. That clay soil packed down hard by centuries of
rain would formerly shed water like a duck's back, but once loosened
and broken up, it tends to retain the water like a sponge, and the
more moisture retained, the greater the rainfall. In Colorado, the
extensive irrigation practiced tends to produce the same result; the
dry, sandy soil is becoming moist and filled with vegetable matter,
till in some instances the land needs only the usual rains to produce
good crops. This increased moisture in the atmosphere has another
effect, and that is upon the health of consumptives. Instances are
occurring where these invalids are leaving the plains with their net
work of ditches and are going up into the dryer mountain air.

Leaving Fort Collins, or "Collins" as it will shortly be called, we
tarried Monday night at a large sheep ranch on the way to Laramie,
where shearing commenced the next morning. The owner has nearly
10,000 sheep in his different camps, and six California shearers
began shearing at the rate of about 150 sheep a day for each man. The
sheep were caught by the hind leg and sat upon their haunches between
the legs of the shearer, and, commencing at their necks, the white
and cream-colored fleeces rolled off the sheep with surprising
rapidity. Occasionally, a piece of flesh would go with the fleece,
and hardly a sheep escaped without some bright red streaks or spots
upon it, the blood making a sharp contrast in color against the clean
white appearance of the naked sheep.

After watching the operation for an hour or more, we started up across
the foot-hills to get to the Laramie road on the other side, passing
a stream where the water was as red as blood from the red mud or sand
being washed down. These foot-hills are immense ledges of rocks that
look very much as I have seen ice packed up against the banks of the
Connecticut River when the ice breaks up in the spring. Looking at
these foot-hills toward the west, they present the appearance of so
many rounded hills of gravel and sand; but go up into and pass through
them, and turn about and look at them in the opposite direction,
and it seems really as if, ages ago, the crust of the earth had been
broken up, as ice is in the spring, and the immense cakes of red
and white sandstone had been jammed and forced up against the broad
shoulders of the Rocky Mountains, till these slabs of stratified rock,
several hundred feet thick, overlapped each other, and some of them
were even forced up into almost perpendicular positions.

Wherever I have passed through these foot-hills, whether at Manitou,
Boulder, or at Fort Collins, the country has the same general
appearance: that of some immense rock-jam forcing the cakes from
the east up on the banks of the Rocky Mountains. Much of the red
sandstone is very red, and the contrast between that and the white
sandstone is strongly marked, the red and white hills being mixed up
promiscuously. We followed a very good road up through the foot-hills
for awhile, but the wagon tracks grew fewer and fewer, as they
branched off in different directions, till we struck a common trail,
and as we wound around the north side of a high rocky hill this trail
disappeared entirely, and we found ourselves off among the barren and
sandy foot-hills without the slightest road, trail, or habitation
in sight for miles. We debated some time which direction to take,
but finally I left my knapsack and wheel and climbed up the rocky
side of that hill to get a better view, when behold, there was the
Laramie road, just over the hill about a mile away. We had a hard
job to get our machines over, but were soon on our way, spinning
over a fine mountain road that remained good for fifty miles to
Laramie, furnishing some of the finest coasting I ever had. This
road for many miles was probably 8,000 feet above the sea, so that
this elevation had the effect to dwarf the mountains that rose only
a little higher. In fact, it is generally remarked by travelers that
the Rocky Mountain scenery west of Cheyenne is very tame. Many of the
hills are perfectly level on top, looking at them against the horizon,
and the sides slant off, the angles being as sharp and clean cut as
if the hills were built by hand.

Just before reaching Laramie we noticed, off to the east on the plains,
another Garden of the Gods, that far exceeds in every way the one
near Manitou. It was with regret that I could only look at it from
a distance of two miles or more, but the perpendicular position,
the height, and the curious shape of the roads, standing up out of
the level plains, was certainly very interesting.

Arriving at Laramie I inquired of the first man I met, who happened to
be a good-natured Dutchman, where a certain friend of mine lived. "I
don't know," he said, "but Johnny Wilson is the one you want to see. I
will go find him for you. Any one coming so far as Conneckticut must
be taken care of. Wilson knows the whole beezness," and he ran into
his store, seized his coat and escorted us up the main street of
Laramie, calling out to every one he knew, "These two fellows came
from Conneckticut on a bicycle," and then he would haw-haw and laugh
as if he had secured the greatest prize in the country. In vain I told
him I wanted to find my friends before dark, but "Mr. Wilson is the
one to take care of you. He knows the whole beezness." We stopped on
the corner to find Wilson, who, it will be surmised, is a wheelman,
and men and boys, old and young, ran to that corner as if there was
a fire, and in less time than it takes to write it, the sidewalk was
blocked and the crowd extended out into the street. Really, Laramie
was more excited at the arrival of two tired wheelmen than any place
through which I have yet passed. The next morning we left the line
of the Union Pacific and followed the old emigrant trail across the
plains. The country is the dryest, sandiest, and most barren looking
of any I had yet seen. Hour after hour we rode over a treeless and
grassless country that would have been less disappointing if it had
been more level, for as we slowly reached the crest of one long,
gentle swell, through the deep sand, another billow, higher still,
came in sight, and when we had perhaps walked to the top of that,
still another, just a little higher, appeared ahead. Then over a
long, level space, and we came to a shallow basin, perhaps eight
miles across, on the other side of which could be seen the slender
thread of our future course. Then the same rolling country with not
a ranch in sight for hours.

That day we passed but one stream of water, and what made our thirst
more severe was a strong head wind that dried and parched our open
mouths till the flesh almost cracked open. About two o'clock we got
some milk at a ranch, but that only satisfied our hunger, it did not
quench our thirst. All day long we expected to come in sight of the
railroad again at the top of every long hill, but every time we were
disappointed, and we were doomed not to see railroad or telegraph
pole for two days longer.

About 7 o'clock that night we came in sight of a ranch, (ranches out
here are all slab huts), but there was no one at home, so we laid down
and rested, as the next ranch was eight or ten miles farther on, and
it was no use thinking of reaching it that night. Still no one came,
and about dark we began to investigate. Flour, sugar, lard, coffee,
salt, baking powder, and other things were found in the cupboard,
but not a thing cooked. Well, now, with all these things before them,
two half-starved boys would not go to bed hungry, "you bet."

Hasley started out with a tin pail to milk a cow, but the cattle
ran off as wild as deers and he concluded they were "all steers,
any how." Plenty of whole coffee, but no coffee-mill. I was on
the point of pounding up some of the kernels with a hammer when
the coffee mill was found. The smell of boiling coffee soon put a
keen edge upon our already ravenous appetite, but what could we cook
besides? Griddlecakes! Somehow I remembered lard was sometimes put into
griddlecakes to make them short, and in a jiffy I was trying to mix
three tablespoonfuls of lard into two quarts of flour with a spoon,
but the ingredients would not mix well so I used my hands, forgetting
that I had just used a greasy rag with which to clean the lantern
globe, and that some of the thick coat of soot might have remained
on my hands. Then two tablespoonfuls of Dr. Price's baking powder was
spri

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