Pedal and Path: Across the Continent Awheel and Afoot

by George B. Thayer

The wages of the employees, from the common laborer up, is considerably higher than in the East—one deserves more for living out in such a barren country—so that the more one learns of the cost of running the road the less he grumbles at the high passenger fare.

But it may be asked what has a touring bicyclist to do with the railroad, and why should he feel less or more like grumbling? It is just here. We had ridden three or four days against a wind so strong that it would not allow riding much of the time even on level ground, and to keep up this discouragingly hard work for the sake simply of riding the whole distance, was not the object of the trip. We could already realize the hardships and privations of the early settlers who crossed these same plains years ago, fighting Indians the whole time. Of that part we, of course, knew nothing, but our experience was sufficient. I do not regret it, but it is like putting one’s head under water the first time to feel that queer sensation. It is unnecessary, though, to keep the head under for an hour or two to fully realize the feeling, so we thought about the plains, and took a freight at Rawlins.

There we found a wheelman, Mr. James Deitrick, chief train dispatcher on the Wyoming Division of the Union Pacific Railroad, whose kindness to us, especially in a pecuniary manner, will never be forgotten. We thought of him as the train slowly climbed the continental divide and went spinning down the other side, over the same monotonous stretch of sand and sage brush. A ride of seventy-five miles brought us to Green River at eleven o’clock at night. We knew nothing of the town, excepting that we wanted to find some other place to stay than at the $4 a day hotel, and were inquiring at a saloon (there were plenty of those open), when a little short man said: “Come over and stay with me. You are welcome to the best I have.” This open-hearted fellow proved to be Frank H. Van Meer Beke, an older brother of the plucky young wheelman who started last March from New York for San Francisco via New Orleans and New Mexico. Frank was formerly a member of the Kings County Bicycle Club of Brooklyn, N. Y., and we were his welcome visitors for two days longer. If his brother Fred is anything like him he is a royal good fellow.

Green River is a place of a few hundred inhabitants, without a shade tree or a patch of green grass in the whole town. During the day we took a swim in the cold waters of the river, the first stream we had seen that empties into the Pacific Ocean, and climbed some of the high rocks in the vicinity, and from their very summits we picked out the fossil remains of many a tiny little fish that had been imbedded there ages ago, when perhaps the only dry land on the face of the earth was in the Adirondacks, Canada, and in the western part of our own State of Connecticut. In the evening (Sunday evening, July 4th) stores were open, saloons in full blast, and fireworks, cannons, and bonfires added to the turmoil. They fired Roman candles into each other’s faces without the slightest warning, and the back of my shirt shows the effect of one of the bolts that scorched the skin through the flannel.

Monday our host took our machines to pieces and cleaned them thoroughly, for he was perfectly at home at that work, having had charge of a riding rink in Brooklyn, and Tuesday morning at 4 o’clock found us on our way to Evanston. We started early to avoid as much as possible the discouraging trade winds, and after crossing the river on the ties of the railroad bridge we climbed a long hill, and got a most extended view of just the same sand and sage brush. At noon, to get out of the terribly hot sun, we crawled down under a railroad bridge and ate our luncheon. We were beginning to learn to carry food along with us.

But thirty miles of sand, railroad ties, and that blazing sun drove us into another freight train, and Wednesday morning we left Evanston and before noon were riding leisurely down Echo Cañon on our bicycles. I did not regret then that I was traveling on my wheel, for the roads were good and we stopped and enjoyed the grand scenery to our heart’s content. A train went whizzing by, and I saw passengers quickly calling each other’s attention to a particularly interesting place in the cañon. With them it was simply a glance, and they were gone; with us, an abundance of time to look as long as we liked. The finest view of the best part of the cañon is to be had, I think, only from the highway. Looking up the cañon, the rocks, four or five hundred feet high projecting out into it, have very much the appearance of the bows of so many immense ocean steamers lying side by side. These rocks are a conglomerated mixture of sand, gravel, stones, and rocks thrown together promiscuously and hardened by some process of nature into one solid mass of rock again. On the outside the whole body of rocks is colored red by some action of the atmosphere, I think, but underneath they show their natural color, that of light sandstone.

Coming down the cañon we found an overall jacket lying in the road, pretty soon we came to the tailboard of a wagon, then a ball of tobacco twine, soon after a bottle (how our mouths watered) of varnish (then they did not). Then more twine and a bunch of ropes and a bag and then more twine. For five miles we could see the trail in the road where this twine had been dragged along, and whenever it happened to catch on a bush or stone the twine would be strung along for a quarter of a mile or so. A small feed box came next and finally a good horse collar. It still remains a mystery to whom all these things belonged, and the reader must conjecture for himself. We really enjoyed wondering what we should find next.

Gophers seem to take the place of prairie dogs in the high altitudes. They are somewhat smaller, but have very much the same ways of living and are more tame. One of the little fellows stopped in front of his hole one day, within a few feet of me, sat up and ate some sage leaves, came up and sniffed at the bicycle, and, indeed, seemed very friendly. I really wanted to get hold of and squeeze him.

Traveling alone so much has made me feel very friendly toward the lower animals. I have been as much inclined to stop and talk to a horse or a little pig as to a person, and many times I longed to have the different ones wait till I could get hold of and caress them. The farther I travel the more this feeling grows on me, but there is still one animal that I have not yet learned to love or to want to squeeze, and that is a rattlesnake. But I can see I am growing in grace in that respect also. Now, when I see a snake, I don’t run and jump on it, as I used to at home. The defenseless condition of my legs may have had something to do with this change of heart, but really they are the only living things that have annoyed me, thus far.

At Echo we found we were as near Salt Lake City as we should be at Ogden, forty miles further along on the line of the Union Pacific, so we started in a southerly direction over excellent roads, up the beautiful Weber Valley, and were soon eating supper at a comfortable farm-house, where everything was as homelike and pleasant as in any New England home. Desiring information, I said: “I wonder if any of those people in large canvas covered wagons we have been meeting are Mormons?” “O, yes,” the farmer’s wife replied quickly, “there are lots of them around here. They go out on fishing excursions this time of the year a great deal. What do you Eastern people think of the Mormons, anyway? Do you think we have horns?” You can imagine my surprise, but the farmer and his wife, too, joined in and talked so freely and pleasantly on the subject that I soon asked questions as freely as they answered them. “Yes,” the farmer said, “I have been married twenty-three years and have never had more than the one wife. I may sometime take another, but I don’t see my way clear to do so yet. A few Mormons around here have more than one wife, but the elections show that only one in eight throughout the whole territory are polygamists. The church does not oblige us to take more than one wife any more than it does to pay one-tenth of what we raise at tilling, and there are lots of Mormons who never do either, but if we do our whole duty we should do both. It is not enough for the Government to oblige us to give up wives we have loved and had children by, but now they are trying to pass a law to disfranchise us if we will not swear we will give up our religion. Juries are packed and we are convicted without justice. We never will give up our religion. We must submit for a while, but the time will come when we shall be delivered from our persecutors.”