74 SHORT STALKS 



exhaust. Across the Athiiitic we sailed a time race against 

 the Servia and Austral. We won by lialf an hour, which 

 was inspiriting, though the speed was not comparable 

 to that attained nowadays. For the continental journey 

 one makes a o-ood start in the " Chicaoo Limited," but 

 it gradually diminishes in speed and civilisation as it 

 approaches the watershed. We passed through a " hot 

 snap," but there was an antidote to the intense heat, by 

 help of which we not only endured Ijut even enjoyed 

 it. This was to sit in the smokino- saloon of the train 

 in a cane-backed chair, with l)oth feet out of the window, 

 so that the fifty -mile -an -hour breeze, entering by the 

 boots, passed in a soothing current up the legs, permeated 

 the small of the back, and escaped behind the ears. All 

 the passengers did it, at least all the male ones, and every 

 window was decorated with these patent ventilators. 



Arrived at Eawlins, a station on the " Union Pacific," 

 at 3 A.M. of the fourth dav, we found that the mail for Fort 

 Washakie started four hours later. A rapid series of trans- 

 actions with the local banker, who had to l.)e roused from 

 his bed for the purpose, and we were ready at seven. The 

 vehicle, locallv known as a " mud wao-oon," was a small 

 edition of the ''Dead wood" coach which burned so much 

 powder a few seasons ago at West Kensington. It was 

 not showy, Ijut had need to be very tough. Our course of 

 thirty-six hours, or thereabouts, over sage-bush plains and 

 ridges, was not dictated Ijy any consideration of gradients. 

 Dry watercourses or gulches were taken at a canter, with 

 a swoop of which the Switchback Railway gives a faint 

 idea, and a bounce whicli drove the tops of our heads 

 against the roof, fortunately made of nothing harder than 



