paces from my road, I half hesitate to fire at him, lest the noise of
the report should bring out the vigilant and lynx-eyed game-keeper, and
get me "summoned" for poaching. I remember the pleasant ten-mile ride
through this park-like pasture as one of the brightest spots of the whole
journey across America. But "every rose conceals a thorn," and pleasant
paths often load astray; when I emerge from the pasture I find myself
several miles off the right road and have to make my unhappy way across
lots, through numberless gates and small ranches, to the road again.

There seems to be quite a sprinkling of Spanish or Mexican rancheros
through here, and after partaking of the welcome noon-tide hospitality
of one of the ranches, I find myself, before I realize it, illustrating
the bicycle and its uses, to a group of sombrero-decked rancheros and
darked-eyed se¤oritas, by riding the machine round and round on their
own ranch-lawn. It is a novel position, to say the least; and often
afterward, wending my solitary way across some dreary Nevada desert,
with no company but my own uncanny shadow, sharply outlined on the white
alkali by the glaring rays of the sun, my untrammelled thoughts would
wander back to this scene, and I would grow "hot and cold by turns," in
my uncertainty as to whether the bewitching smiles of the se¤oritas were
smiles of admiration, or whether they were simply "grinning" at the
figure I cut. While not conscious of having cut a sorrier figure than
usual on that occasion, somehow I cannot rid myself of an unhappy, ban-
owing suspicion, that the latter comes nearer the truth than the former.

The ground is gradually getting more broken; huge rocks intrude themselves
upon the landscape. At the town of Rocklin we are supposed to enter the
foot-hill country proper. Much of the road in these lower foot-hills is
excellent, being of a hard, stony character, and proof against the winter
rains. Everybody who writes anything about the Golden State is expected