Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1895-12-14
HOOFS AND WHEELS.
BY A. t. VANCE.

Two bicycles leaning together on nn
arid, treeless, rolling plain; few tufts
of scattered cacti; no human being,
beast or bird in sight; perfect stiffness
und early afternoon under sun that
bazed where never cloud had flown
for weeks. Even insects had perished
fronN 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
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 l were almost
within springing distance of our bikes,
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 it's glare.
Del and |, college chums, had undor
taken to wheel from San Francisco TO
Los Angeles, nearly 400 miles us The
crow flies. Our guides were 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 nll demands
made in the name of the white almighty
dollar of Uncle Sam.
Without good letters of introduction
to various owners of ranchos, 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 tor
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 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 track is plain enough -
! said. 1.-The last man we met said WE
couldn't miss 1T as long as we kept
about this far from the foothills"
But he said something else. l 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 -
"Pochl Are you afraid of COWS? !?
Come along; we must move. There's II
rise about half mile ahead; perhaps
we shall see the rancho from there; it
be not half so far"
Again we sped over the vast plain,
cobwebbed with fissures and cracks hy
the long drought, which had made u
veritabie desert of the tract within
sight.
Five miles nearer the coast the couG-
try smiled with grass and grain, vine
yards and olive groves, but here
we were running through waste
drearier than any we had traversed.
AS the assures and cracks mostly ran
on southerly course, we seldom need
ed to dismount, though frequently
forced to short detours. So we soon
climbed the gradual rise, whose sum-
init extended on level broad enough
70 hide the lower tract Immediately oe-
yond. Yet the more distant ground was
In view, and there, as if it had suddenly
sprung from the earth, we saw the ir-
regular, broken line of the adobe walls
OF Rancho del Paso, our resting place.
"Hurrahl 1t can't be more than four
miles away, Dell" cried. Come along;
let us drop into this dried-up arroyo and
get it's shade till it runs out in the next
lowland," for we knew that such An
arroyo, or water course, cuts somewhat
deeply through the slow rises and but
little into the hollows of these plains.
While we dipped into the arroyo the
tufts of cacti on the upland seemed
moving in the shimmering sunlight.
we reached the lower level, when our
heads were higher than the frayed
sides of the water course. Then Del and
cried out together in amazement, tpr
countless cattle were near us ON tie
plain.
AS we ran up out of the water course
we saw groups scattered as far as the
eye could reach. They fanked us On
both sides; hundreds were behind us;
q compact array, almost numerous
enough to be called herd, stood on our
path to the ranch.
Toward this mass all the others
seemed to be converging, rs the slop-
Ing sides of a funnel trend toward its
hole, OF rather as the horns of COW
often curve inward at the tips.
Our course to the rancho lay almost
evenly between the sides of this living
funnel. But its opening was blocked.
Still, we believed we could pass round
that small, massed herd.
1t was not at all necessary for us 10
make the attempt, and we would not
have tried it had we imagined it to be
dangerous. Nothing but u little shade