The Forrest City times. [volume] (Forrest City, Ark.) 1871-1919, 1895-12-06
HOOFS AND WHEELS.
By A. L. VANCE.

Two bicycles leaning together on an
arid, treeless, rolling plain; few tufts
of scattered cacti; no human being,
beast or bird III sight; perfect stiffness
and early afternoon under a sun Chat
DlaZed where never a cloud had flown
for weeks. Even insects had persisted
from drought in that desolation-so
anyone might have imagined had any
one been gazing about on that Califor
mia scene from point within hundred
yards of the apparently deserted
wheels.
Had native stood there he would not
have supposed the wheels deserted, but
guessed that the riders were concealed
in some crack of the sun-baked earth.
Indeed, Del Hall and | were almost
within springing distance OF our bik' :,
and much disinclined to remount them.
We had lunched fully if not comfort
ably on the provisions and drink we
carried; the earth-crack in which we
lay was deep and narrow enough 10
shade us from the slightly westering
sun, and we shrank from more pedal
ing under its glare.
Del and |, college chums, had under
taken to wheel from San Francisco TO
Los Angeles, nearly 400 miles as the
crow flies. Our guides were a pocket
compass and the ''lay of the land" Our
interpreters were the natives and our
selves-their much Mexican being
about as clear to us as our little Spanish
to them. But they were wonderfully
quick in understanding all demands
made in the name of the white almighty
dollar of Uncle Sam.
Without good letters of introduction
to various owners of ranches, who
passed us on with equally good letters
to others of their hospitable kind, we
could not have traversed the country.
Much of it lacks inns and stores, and
even places of public resort. But for
hospitality we should have starved.
And on this blazing day we were max
ing for the Rancho del Paso, an interest
ing old mission ranch established long
before gold-seekers rushed to Cali
fornia.
We had not met a soul for ten miles
before lunching.
Are you sure we're on the way?' De!
asked, as the time came near when we
must remount.
Certainly; the tracks, plain enough"
/ said. 1.-The last man we met said we
couldn't miss it as long as we kept
about this far from the foothills"
but he said something else. | wish
we had stopped longer to make out
what he did mean. 1t was something
about Plaza de Toros. I've been think
ing he was warning us against cattle :"
Pooh! Are you afraid of cows?
Come along; we must move. There's "A
rise about half mile ahead; perhaps
we shall see the rancho from there; It
can't be more than Is miles away; may
be not half so far"
Again we sped over the vast PLAIN,
cobwebbed with assures and cracks by
the long drought, which had made
yeritable desert of the tract within
sight.
Five miles nearer the coast the coun
try smiled with grass and grain, vine
Yards and olive groves, but here
we were running through waste
drearier than any we had traversec.
But we hoped for a more pleasing pros
pect beyond the slow rise we were as
cending.
AS the assures and cracks mostly ran
on a southerly course, we seldom need
ed to dismount, though frequently
forced to short detours. So we soon
climbed the gradual rise, whose sum
nit extended on a level broad enough
TO hide the lower tract Immediately be-