"There is only a small rise at Sherman," he rises to explain, " and
another still smaller at the Alleghanies; all the balance is downhill
to the Atlantic. Of course you'll have to 'boat it' across the Frogpond;
then there's Europe - mostly level; so is Asia, except the Himalayas - and
you can soon cross them; then you're all 'hunky,' for there's no mountains
to speak of in China." Evidently Alkali Bill is a person who points the
finger of scorn at small ideas, and leaves the bothersome details of
life to other and smaller-minded folks. In his vast and glorious imagery
he sees a centaur-like cycler skimming like a frigate-bird across states
and continents, scornfully ignoring sandy deserts and bridgeless streams,
halting for nothing but oceans, and only slowing up a little when he
runs up against a peak that bobs up its twenty thousand feet of snowy
grandeur serenely in his path. What a Ceasar is lost to this benighted
world, because in its blindness, it will not search out such men as
Alkali and ask them to lead it onward to deeds of inconceivable greatness.
Alkali Bill can whittle more chips in an hour than some men could in a
week. Much of the Humboldt Valley, through which my road now runs, is
at present flooded from the vast quantities of water that are pouring
into it from the Ruby Range of mountains now visible to the southeast,
and which have the appearance of being the snowiest of any since leaving
the Sierras. Only yesterday I threatened to shed blood before I left
Nevada, and sure enough my prophecy is destined to speedy fulfilment.
Just east of the Osino Ca¤on, and where the North Fork of the Humboldt
comes down from the north and joins the main stream, is a stretch of
swampy ground on which swarms of wild ducks and geese are paddling about.
I blaze away at them, and a poor inoffensive gosling is no more. While
writing my notes this evening, in a room adjoining the "bar" at Halleck,
near the United States fort of the same name, I overhear a boozy soldier
modestly informing his comrades that forty-five miles an hour is no
unusual speed to travel with a bicycle. Gradually I am nearing the source