of coyotes noisily baying the pale-yellow author of all this loveliness, and the wild, unearthly scream of an unknown bird or animal coming from some mysterious, undefinable quarter completes an ideal Western picture, a poem, a dream, that fully compensates for the discomforts of the preceding hour.  The inspiration of this beautiful scene awakes the slumbering poesy within, and I am inspired to compose a poem-"Moonlight in the Rockies"-that I expect some day to see the world go into raptures over!

A few miles from the Chinese shanty I pass a party of Indians camped by the side of my road.  They are squatting around the smouldering embers of a sage-brush fire, sleeping and dozing.  I am riding slowly and carefully along the road that happens to be ridable just here, and am fairly past them before being seen.  As I gradually vanish in the moonlit air I wonder what they think it was — that strange-looking object that so silently and mysteriously glided past.  It is safe to warrant they think me anything but flesh and blood, as they rouse each other and peer at my shadowy form disappearing in the dim distance.

>From Battle Mountain my route leads across a low alkali bottom, through which dozens of small streams are flowing to the Humboldt.  Many of them are narrow enough to be jumped, but not with a bicycle on one’s shoulder, for under such conditions there is always a disagreeable uncertainty that one may disastrously alight before he gets ready.  But I am getting tired of partially undressing to ford streams that are little more than ditches, every little way, and so I hit upon the novel plan of using the machine for a vaulting-pole.  Beaching it out into the centre of the stream, I place one hand on the head and the other on the saddle, and vault over, retaining my hold as I alight on the opposite shore.  Pulling the bicycle out after me, the thing is done.  There is no telling to what uses this two-wheeled “creature” could be put in case of necessity.  Certainly the inventor never expected it to be used for a vaulting-pole in leaping across streams.  Twenty-five miles east of Battle Mountain the valley of the Humboldt widens into a plain of some size, through which the river meanders with many a horseshoe curve, and maps out the pot-hooks and hangers of our childhood days in mazy profusion.  Amid these innumerable curves and counter-curves, clumps of willows and tall blue-joint reeds grow thickly, and afford shelter to thousands of pelicans, that here make their homes far from the disturbing presence of man.  All unconscious of impending difficulties, I follow the wagon trail leading through this valley until I find myself standing on the edge of the river, ruefully looking around for some avenue by which I can proceed on my way.  I am in the bend of a horseshoe curve, and the only way to get out is to retrace my footsteps for several miles, which disagreeable performance I naturally feel somewhat opposed to doing.  Casting about