Ghigago mit dot.  Why, mine dear Yellow, Ghi-gago’s more as vorty miles; you gan’t ride mit dot to Ghigago;” and the old fellow’s eyes fairly bulge with astonishment at the bare idea of riding forty miles “mit dot.”  I considerately refrain from telling him of my already 2,500-mile jaunt “mit dot,” lest an apoplectic fit should waft his Teutonic soul to realms of sauer-kraut bliss and Limburger happiness forever.  On the morning of July 4th I roll into Chicago, where, having persuaded myself that I deserve a few days’ rest, I remain till the Democratic Convention winds up on the 13th.

Fifteen miles of good riding and three of tough trundling, through deep sand, brings me into Indiana, which for the first thirty-five miles around the southern shore of Lake Michigan is “simply and solely sand.”  Finding it next to impossible to traverse the wagon-roads, I trundle around the water’s edge, where the sand is firmer because wet.  After twenty miles of this I have to shoulder the bicycle and scale the huge sand-dunes that border the lake here, and after wandering for an hour through a bewildering wilderness of swamps, sand-hills, and hickory thickets, I finally reach Miller Station for the night.  This place is enough to give one the yellow-edged blues:  nothing but swamps, sand, sad-eyed turtles, and ruthless, relentless mosquitoes.  At Chesterton the roads improve, but still enough sand remains to break the force of headers, which, notwithstanding my long experience on the road, I still manage to execute with undesirable frequency.  To-day I take one, and while unravelling myself and congratulating my lucky stars at being in a lonely spot where none can witness my discomfiture, a gruff, sarcastic “haw-haw” falls like a funeral knell on my ear, and a lanky “Hoosier” rides up on a diminutive pumpkin-colored mule that looks a veritable pygmy between his hoop-pole legs.  It is but justice to explain that this latter incident did not occur in “Posey County.”

At La Porte the roads improve for some distance, but once again I am benighted, and sleep under a wheat-shock.  Traversing several miles of corduroy road, through huckleberry swamps, next morning, I reach Cram’s Point for breakfast.  A remnant of some Indian tribe still lingers around here and gathers huckleberries for the market, two squaws being in the village purchasing supplies for their camp in the swamps.  “What’s the name of these Indians here?” I ask..  “One of em’s Blinkie, and t’other’s Seven-up,” is the reply, in a voice that implies such profound knowledge of the subject that I forbear to investigate further.