years old; but the Indians themselves never know their age, as they count
everything by the changes of the moon and the seasons, having no knowledge
whatever of the calendar year. While talking on this subject, imagine
my surprise to hear my informant - who looks as if the Scriptures are the
last thing in the world for him to speak of - volunteer the information
that our venerable and venerated ancestors, the antediluvians, used to
count time in the same way as the Indians, and that instead of Methuselah
being nine hundred and sixty-nine years of age, it ought to be revised
so as to read " nine hundred and sixty-nine moons," which would bring
that ancient and long-lived person-the oldest man that ever lived-down
to the venerable but by no means extraordinary age of eighty years and
nine months. This is the first time I have heard this theory, and my
astonishment at hearing it from the lips of a rough-looking habitue of
the Nevada plains, seated in the midst of a group of illiterate Indians,
can easily be imagined. On, up the Humboldt valley I continue, now riding
over a smooth, alkali flat, and again slavishly trundling through deep
sand, a dozen snowy mountain peaks round about, the Humboldt sluggishly
winding its way through the alkali plain; on past Eye Patch, to the right
of which are more hot springs, and farther on mines of pure sulphur-all
these things, especially the latter, unpleasantly suggestive of a certain
place where the climate is popularly supposed to be uncomfortably warm;
on, past Humboldt

Station, near which place I wantonly shoot a poor harmless badger, who
peers inquisitively out of his hole as I ride past. There is something
peculiarly pathetic about the actions of a dying badger, and no sooner
has the thoughtless shot sped on its mission of death than I am sorry
for doing it.

Going out of Mill City next morning I lose the way, and find myself up