over a hundred yards in advance. He hasn't seen me yet; he is perfectly
oblivious of the fact that he is in "the presence." A person of ordinary
discretion would simply have revealed his presence by a gentlemanly
sneeze, or a slight noise of any kind, when the lion would have immediately
bolted back into the underbrush. Unable to resist the temptation, I fired
at him, and of course missed him, as a person naturally would at a hundred
yards with a bull-dog revolver. The bullet must have singed him a little
though, for, instead of wildly scooting for the brush, as I anticipated,
he turns savagely round and comes bounding rapidly toward me, and at
twenty paces crouches for a spring. Laying his cat-like head almost on
the ground, his round eyes flashing fire, and his tail angrily waving
to and fro, he looks savage and dangerous. Crouching behind the bicycle,
I fire at him again. Nine times out of ten a person will overshoot the
mark with a revolver under such circumstances, and, being anxious to
avoid this, I do the reverse, and fire too low. The ball strikes the
ground just in front of his head, and throws the sand and gravel in his
face, and perhaps in his wicked round eyes; for he shakes his head,
springs up, and makes off into the brush. I shall shed blood of some
sort yet before I leave Nevada. There isn't a day that I don't shoot at
something or other; and all I ask of any animal is to come within two
hundred yards and I will squander a cartridge on him, and I never fail
to hit the ground.

At Elko, where I take dinner, I make the acquaintance of an individual,
rejoicing in the sobriquet of "Alkali Bill," who has the largest and
most comprehensive views of any person I ever met. He has seen a paragraph,
something about me riding round the world, and he considerately takes
upon himself the task of summing up the few trifling obstacles that I
shall encounter on the way round: