But I must hurry on. Early on Friday afternoon, October 9th, I set out from Williamsport, with Oil City as my next objective point. I had no money, but this did not disturb me, for I was entering the open country and felt sure of finding work. The road lay along the fertile river bottom and then began to climb the range of hills which walls in the valley on the north. The lasting impression here is of a region of most uncommon natural wealth. Many square miles of farms come into the range of vision; the soil looks like a deep, rich loam. And a like impression comes to you from the opposite bank of the river, where the land lies flat to the foot of the southern range of hills. From such a vantage ground you see at a glance how the river, shut in by these barriers, could have risen to so great a height in the flood of 1889 and have worked such appalling disaster. There are constant references to "the flood" among the inhabitants of the valley, and it plainly holds for them the place of a chronological mark not unlike that held farther East by the "blizzard" of 1888, only it sounds not a little odd at first to hear common reference to antediluvian events. Presently I came to a road which forked at Linden to the right, and made in the direction of a gap in the hills. Its general course seemed westward, and so I followed it. An hour or two later it had led me into a forest, where the sunlight was fast fading. I was intent on the question of finding work before nightfall, when I heard the rumble of wheels behind me, and a voice singing a German song. I looked up as the wagon came alongside. The horses were walking slowly up the hill, and a young man lounged at leisure on the seat. His legs were crossed, and the reins lay loosely in one hand. A light, wide-brimmed felt hat was pushed back on his crown, and from under the rim the yellow hair rested on his forehead. He was singing from sheer lightness of heart; and young and strong and handsome as he was, he made you think of Alvary in his part of _Siegfried_. "Have a ride?" he called to me, and there was no trace of foreign accent in his speech. "Thank you," I said; and in another moment my pack was in the bottom of the wagon and I on the seat beside the driver. "Where are you going?" "I'm looking for a job." "You want work on a farm?" "Yes, that or any other kind of work that I can get." "Well, there ain't much doing on the farms now. I don't know nobody that's looking for a hired man. There's Abe Potter, I heard him say as how he wanted to hire a man to work for him all winter; but Miss' Potter, she told my wife last night that he'd got Jim Hale's boy, Al, to live out to him. Say, did you ever work in the woods?" "No."