'Frisco Bicycle Club, in order that their fury may be spent ere I again
set foot on their auriferous soil.

"What'll you do when you hit the snow?" is now a frequent question asked
by the people hereabouts, who seem to be more conversant with affairs
pertaining to the mountains than they are of what is going on in the
valleys below. This remark, of course, has reference to the deep snow
that, toward the summits of the mountains, covers the ground to the depth
of ten feet on the level, and from that to almost any depth where it has
drifted and accumulated. I have not started out on this greatest of all
bicycle tours without looking into these difficulties, and I remind them
that the long snow-sheds of the Central Pacific Railway make it possible
for one to cross over, no matter how deep the snow may lie on the ground
outside. Some speak cheerfully of the prospects for getting over, but
many shake their heads ominously and say, "You'll never be able to make
it through."

Rougher and more hilly become the roads as we gradually penetrate farther
and farther into the foot-hills. We are now in far-famed Placer County,
and the evidences of the hardy gold diggers' work in pioneer days are
all about us. In every gulch and ravine are to be seen broken and decaying
sluice-boxes. Bare, whitish-looking patches of washed-out gravel show
where a "claim " has been worked over and abandoned. In every direction
are old water-ditches, heaps of gravel, and abandoned shafts - all telling,
in language more eloquent than word or pen, of the palmy days of '49,
and succeeding years; when, in these deep gulches, and on these yellow
hills, thousands of bronzed, red-shirted miners dug and delved, and
"rocked the cradle" for the precious yellow dust and nuggets. But all
is now changed, and where were hundreds before, now only a few "old
timers " roam the foot-hills, prospecting, and working over the old