is either spoiling for a fight or doesn't care a continental password
whether war is declared or not. Moreover, animals recognize the peculiar
advantages of two to one in a fight equally with their human infer! - superiors;
and those two over there are apparently in no particular hurry to move
on. They don't seem awed at my presence. On the contrary, they look
suspiciously like being undecided and hesitative about whether to let
me proceed peacefully on my way or not. Their behavior is outrageous;
they stare and stare and stare, and look quite ready for a fight. I don't
intend one to come off, though, if I can avoid it. I prefer to have it
settled by arbitration. I haven't lost these bears; they aren't mine,
and I don't want anything that doesn't belong to me. I am not covetous;
so, lest I should be tempted to shoot at them if I come within the
regulation two hundred yards, I "edge off" a few hundred yards in the
other direction, and soon have the intense satisfaction of seeing them
stroll off toward the mountains. I wonder if I don't owe my escape on
this occasion to my bicycle. Do the bright spokes glistening in the
sunlight as they revolve make an impression on their bearish intellects
that influences their decision in favor of a retreat. It is perhaps
needless to add that, all through this mountain-pass, I keep a loose eye
busily employed looking out for bears.

But nothing more of a bearish nature occurs, and the early gloaming finds
me at Tacoma, a village near the Utah boundary line. There is an awful
calamity of some sort hovering over this village. One can feel it in the
air. The habitues of the hotel barroom sit around, listless and glum.
When they speak at all it is to predict all sorts of difficulties for
me in my progress through Utah and Wyoming Territories. "The black gnats
of the Salt Lake mud flat'll eat you clean up," snarls one. "Bear River's
flooding the hull kintry up Weber Ca¤on way," growls another. "The
slickest thing you kin do, stranger, is to board the keers and git out