miles away from the intellectual hub of the universe! I am sorry to say the ranchman by birth is not an American, but an Englishman. A little farther on, and we overtook a lady on horseback. She did not hear us, but the horse did, and began to act skittish, and not knowing what to make of his actions the lady jumped off. We got by without much trouble, however, but it would never do to ride on leaving the lady dismounted. Here was a state of things. Not a house in sight for miles over the level prairie, not a wagon, box, or anything but a barbed-wire fence to assist the lady to regain the saddle, and with her long riding habit it was impossible to do it alone. One thing, and only one thing could be done. One of us must clasp his hands together on his knee, and in thus making a step for her, help her to mount into the saddle. Now, there were two of us, one tall, the other short. For her to step up on the knee of the taller one would be more difficult than to step up on the knee of the shorter one. So it fell to the lot of the embarrassed writer to do the service. The lady mounted easily to the saddle and we left her. On reaching Denver and looking back over the trip, I felt I had accomplished all and more than I really expected to do when I left home. Not but that I had a strong desire before I started to see the wonders in California, but I thought if I reached Pike's Peak, it would be doing a great deal, all I felt confident of doing then. But now that I reached the goal of my spring ambition so easily, no small consideration would induce me to turn back. I was in better physical condition than when I left home, and the farther I went the more confidence it gave me to continue the journey across to the Pacific. Distance on the wheel, 2,158 miles. CHAPTER XII. ACROSS THE PLAINS. Until now I had expressed a valise, with extra baggage, along to the different cities, but found I could carry everything I needed in the knapsack; and so, leaving the rubber suit behind with the valise, for I was entering a rainless district, and putting on a thinner pair of trousers, I left Denver on the 24th of June. We started on again, in a northerly direction, accompanied for several miles by Mr. J. W. Bryant, and reached Longmont, after a ride of thirty-five miles over miserable roads, rendered more miserable by the water that overflows them from the numerous ditches along the way. Here we found that a ride back to the southwest, to Boulder, and into the mining regions of Boulder County, would make a pleasant little side excursion, and so the next noon we rode over to Boulder, twenty miles, and stopped an hour or so at one of the sampling works. Here large quantities of ore are bought off the miners, and crushed and ground fine as flour, ready to be shipped to the smelting works at Denver and other points.