50 WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



Round-up is but a rocking-horse in comparison. 

 I doubt if you could experience death in any part 

 of the world more times for twenty dollars than 

 by auto-stage from Bend to Burns. 



The trail takes account of every possible bunch 

 of sagebrush and greasewood to be met with on 

 the way. It never goes over a bunch if it can go 

 around a bunch ; and as there is nothing but 

 bunches all the way, the road is very devious. It 

 turns, here and there, every four or five feet (per- 

 haps the sagebrush clumps average five feet 

 apart), and it has a habit, too, whenever it sees 

 the homesteader's wire fences, of dashing for them, 

 down one side of the claim, then short about the 

 corner and down the other side of the claim, 

 steering clear of all the clumps of sage, but rip- 

 ping along horribly near to the sizzling barbs of 

 the wire and the untrimmed stubs on the juniper 

 posts; then darting off into the brush, this way, 

 that way, every way, which in the end proves to 

 be the way to Burns, but no one at the beginning 

 of the trip could believe it — no one from the 

 East, I mean. 



The utter nowhereness of that desert trail ! Of 

 its very start and finish ! I had been used to start- 



