to favor my own assumption of this distinguished title after traversing the route with a bicycle.  Ten o’clock next morning finds me leaning on my wheel, surveying the scenery from the “Continental Divide” — the backbone of the continent.  Pacing the north, all waters at my right hand flow to the east, and all on my left flow to the west — the one eventually finding their way to the Atlantic, the other to the Pacific.  This spot is a broad low pass through the Rockies, more plain than mountain, but from which a most commanding view of numerous mountain chains are obtained.  To the north and northwest are the Seminole, Wind River, and Sweet-water ranges — bold, rugged mountain-chains, filling the landscape of the distant north with a mass of great, jagged, rocky piles, grand beyond conception; their many snowy peaks peopling the blue ethery space above with ghostly, spectral forms well calculated to inspire with feelings of awe and admiration a lone cycler, who, standing in silence and solitude profound on the great Continental Divide, looks and meditates on what he sees.  Other hoary monarchs are visible to the east, which, however, we shall get acquainted with later on.  Down grade is the rule now, and were there a good road, what an enjoyable coast it would be, down from the Continental Divide! but half of it has to be walked.  About eighteen miles from the divide I am greatly amused, and not a little astonished, at the strange actions of a coyote that comes trotting in a leisurely, confidential way toward me; and when he reaches a spot commanding a good view of my road he stops and watches my movements with an air of the greatest inquisitiveness and assurance.  He stands and gazes as I trundle along, not over fifty yards away, and he looks so much like a well-fed collie, that I actually feel like patting my knee for him to come and make friends.  Shoot at him .  Certainly not.  One never abuses a confidence like that.  He can come and rub his sleek coat up against the bicycle if he likes, and — blood-thirsty rascal though he no doubt is — I will never fire at him.  He has as much right to gaze in astonishment at a bicycle as anybody else who never saw one before.

Staying over night and the next day at Rawlins, I make the sixteen miles to Port Fred Steele next morning before breakfast, there bein” a very good road between the two places.  This fort stands on the west bank of North Platte River, and a few miles west of the river I ride through the first prairie dog town encountered in crossing the continent from the west, though I shall see plenty of these interesting little fellows during the next three hundred miles.  These animals sit near their holes and excitedly bark at whatever goes past.  Never before have they had an opportunity to bark at a bicycle, and they seem to be making the most of their opportunity.  I see at this village none of the small speckled owls, which, with the rattlesnake, make themselves so much at home in the prairie-dogs’ comfortable quarters, but I see them farther east.  These three strangely assorted companions may have warm affections toward each other; but one is inclined to think the great bond of sympathy that binds them together is the tender regard entertained by the owl and the rattlesnake for the nice, tender young prairie-pups that appear at intervals to increase the joys and cares of the elder animals.