when the mate reported no Peter John. "There's a sight o' humanitarian cranks aroun' the harbors now'days," he added, nervously.

"If he thought it would plague us, yes!" replied the mate gloomily. "Won't be able to knock a man down soon-betwixt sailor's unions an' skypilots." They pondered silently over the degeneration of the sea and sailors.

"Mebbe we were a leetle bit"Think so?"

"No sayin' what prejudeeced folk might say. It might be as weel, Mr. Tucker, to say

"Nothing about the matter."

The skipper nodded. As two days passed without further sign of Peter John the suicide hypothesis was considered established. The mysterious signs and portents vanished, and the hands, with the exception of old Bill accepted the Peter John theory of causation.

fo-cas

If 'e's

"He me'd them noises, did he?" grumbled Bill, in the security of the tle. "Lu'k 'ere, Salem Smith! overboard 'e's a sperit, ain't e? 'E is,' says you. 'Well,' says I, 'we'll 'ave 'im aboard ag'in.' I leaves this 'ere vessel at Hauclan'."

It was midnight when the Mary Jane came in from the sea. She entered the harbor by the Motukorea Channel. A faint sky-glow, far ahead, marked the sight of Auckland, and to the south the Tamaki headlight shot yellow wings out of the darkness. Slowly and carefully the Mary Jane picked her way through the Bean Rocks, and within two hours cast anchor in the stream.

"Weel, Mr. Tucker," said the captain, when the last link payed through the hawse pipe. "Step below an' hae a nip afore ye turn in."

The skipper filled the glasses and nodded. "Ough! Ough!" he coughed. "Guid stuff that. I'll be goin' ashore to refit the galleys, Mr. Tucker, an' ye'll attend to the waterin', sir."

After the mate had gone, the captain carefully laid out his shore-going clothes ready for the morning. Then, after another nip, he climbed on deck to finish his watch. The cabin door had scarcely closed when a man's head protruded from beneath the bunk. The face was pale,

the eyes black and glistening. The head bobbed in time with the skipper's measured steps. When he was sure the coast was clear, Peter John slid from is hiding place and seized the captain's bot tle.

"'Ere's your 'ealth, Cap'ing Mac," he whispered hoarsely. "With 'onors," he added, filling a second. 'An' miy you live long an' alwiy 'ave a drink for your fre'ns," he finished pouring out a third.

Next he turned his attention to the skipper's raiment. "Just my 'ight," he muttered. "But, O Crikey! W'ot wos 'is mother thinkin' orf?" The band of the skipper's nether garments stuck out like a halo round a saint's head.

Diving into a locker, he haled forth two pairs of the captain's best pajamas. "This 'll 'elp," he grumbled, slipping them on. Then he wound a sheet around his waist and tried on the trowsers. "Just my fit! Now for the bloomin' vest. Another fit! Tie! Shoes! Hat! Mister Peter Jawn," he finished, bowing to is reflection in the skipper's glass, "pleased to meet orf yer."

While he was admiring himself the captain's foot sounded on the stair. Hastily swallowing the last of the whiskey, Peter John dived beneath the bunk, and squeezed in just as the door opened.

"Weel," muttered the captain, "I could ha' sworn as I turned doun the light, an' here it's blazin' like a Roman cantle." He pondered a moment on the phenomenon, and shook his head sadly, "I'm no' the man I was," he muttered, reaching for the whiskey, "that deil sto'way's sent me half daffy."

"What the

He gazed at the empty bottle, then noticed the absence of his clothes. "Where's my togs?" He sank on a locker and glared around the cabin. Mechanically his hand turned the bottle bottom up-not a drop.

"Tucker!" he bellowed. "Tucker!"

The door of the adjoining cabin banged and the mate rushed out. He had not gone through the formality of dressing. He stood in the doorway, big, gaunt, hairy, half-frightened, and wholly angry. "What're ye roaring about now!" he growled. "Got another of them spells?" The skipper stared with a glassy eye, and held out the upturned bottle.

PART I

HAD been three years without a vacation, and when the opportunity cane to get away from my work for as many months you may be sure that I seized with

it

alacrity. There was just one thing about the prospect that I did not like; namely, my bank account, which was not far above zero.

I had long contemplated a trip through the Cascade Mountains, but when I ng ured out the probable cost I found that I would have to either give that up or borrow money to meet the greater part of the expense. While I was undecided as to which would be the better plan a friend suggested that I make the trip a-wheel. I told him that the roads and trails in the Cascade Mountains were not like the bicycle paths in Golden Gate Park, but he retorted rather warmly: "Well, what of that? Where you can't

ride your wheel you can walk beside it. I have heard you boast that you could outwalk a pack-horse; and where the roads are good you can certainly outrun one."

I soon decided to make the trip in that way, and at once began to prepare a camp outfit that I could carry on my wheel. I was no stranger to camp life in the mountains; so I knew just about what I would want; and, what was of far more importance, what I could get along without. My experience with a loaded wheel had been just sufficient to teach me the importance of keeping down the weight to the lowest possible notch.

It would not have been so bad if I had not been a camera fiend. But I would just as soon have staid at home as to have gone without my camera, which was a 62x82 of the long-focus type, weighing fifteen pounds with ine three plate-holders loaded. Had I used films instead of plates it would have materially reduced the weight; but I have a decided preference for plates on such subjects as I expected to photograph.

In addition to that fifteen pounds, 1 calculated on carrying three extra boxes

of plates-another thirteen pounds. Then my sleeping bag weighed nine and a nalf pounds more. My belt-axe weighed twelve ounces, and the cooking utensils one and a fourth pounds. The repair tools and kit added another pound. I expected to be away from civilization not more than ten days at a time; but it takes nitteen pounds of carefully selected food to supply me with enough energy to enjoy ten days wheeling or tramping in the mountains. "The man who knows" will tell you that twenty ounces per day S enough for an ordinary man, but if that is true, I have an abnormal appetite. Then of course I must have carriers o handle such a load on a bicycle; but after they were added my photographic outfit was almost half the load.

Of course I did not expect to carry the entire outfit all the time. Where the country was settled I took little or no provisions, and only took the camera when going away from the railroad where I knew the scenery would repay me for the extra work.

The carrier was so arranged that it could be removed and utilized as a packsaddle to carry the outfit on my back. As a bicycle carrier it was as strong and rigid as could be desired; as a packsaddle it was not much heavier than the ordinary pack-straps, though it was far more comfortable. It's cost was twentyfive cents for clamps to fasten it to the wheel and an equal amount for shoulder straps. It was made of soft pine.

When the carrier was in position on the wheel my camera was fastened into the box with the shoulder strap that I used at other times to carry it by. sleeping bag was rolled up lengthwise, passed across the top and the ends bound to the projecting arms of the carrier.

The

My plates, repair tools, and nicknacks were carried in a common bicycle trunk in the frame of the wheel. Attached to the rear fork and saddlepost was a box for my provisions and cooking utensils. Its dimensions were 8x101⁄2 inches; eight inches being the height. The ends were made of fiveeighths inch, and the rest of the box of three-eighths inch, soft pine. It could be readily removed and fastened between

the projecting arms of the pack-saddie when necessary.

My cooking utensils consisted of two granite-ware pudding-pans, and two small ails of the same material. These latter were sold for two quart pails, but one was so much smaller that it nested witnin the other. The larger one just fit into the pudding pans. Soon after I started I added to these a three-pint tin pail that nested within the other two. I had it made with a tight-fitting cover so that cooked beans, dried fruit, or left-over portions of provisions could be kept in it.

The sleeping bag was made of a Dig double blanket of fine wool. The width of the blanket I made the length of the bag. That gave me three thicknesses all the way around and still left me room enough to curl up in when I wanted to. I found it quite warm enough under ordinary circumstances. On one or two occasions the circumstances were somewhat extraordinary, but that was not the fault of the sleeping bag. A poncho blanket made of a thin but good quality of black table oil-cloth completed my outfit.

The route I had planned to follow

touched the railroad at various points; so I arranged to ship a case of plates and a box containing provisions and extra clothing, from point to point by freight. The freight rates are not high enough to make economy in weight an object; so I put into the box everything that I thought I would be likely to need, unless I was sure it was obtainable along the route.

My provisions were of the most simple kind, consisting mainly of beans and peas, dried fruit and bread.

It is no easy matter to provide suitable bread for a camping trip. Bakers' bread is bulky, it soon gets stale, and is poor stuff at best. Frying-pan bread or reflecting oven biscuits are troublesome to make, even though one is an expert at camp cookery. Ship biscuit, "hard tack," do very well for a while, but one soon gets tired of them. Someone gave me a recipe for a modified form of hardtack that just met my idea of what camping bread ought to be. I tried the recipe first, and when I saw what splendid bread it made I took possession of the kitchen and made up fifty pounds of it.

Better bread for a camping trip could not be made, and as some of my readers may want to try it I will give the recipe: Sift the desired quantity of whole wheat flour, and to each six quarts add a pound of butter or one and a half cups of cotton-seed oil and salt to taste. Work the butter into the flour just as you would in shortening biscuits; then add enough cold water to make a stiff dougn. Add the water a little at a time and stir it quickly into the flour. Knead thoroughly; roll out to about three-fourths of an inch thick; cut into strips an inch wide by three incues long; then bake in a moderately hot oven about forty minutes. They should not be cut until the oven is ready for them, as they are apt to get soggy if left standing between the making and the baking. If well kneaded and properly baked they will be light and crisp. They have a delicious creamy flavor; and though hard, they are never tough. I brought a few of them home after my three months' trip, and they seemed as fresh and tender as when I started out.

The excitement that always attends the national birthday in our large cities had subsided, and the workmen were sweeping the debris of the fire-crackers from Market street as I rode down the cable slip to begin my journey. I boarded the early morning boat, which carried me across the bay. Then a few miles' ride by train through picturesque scenery brought me to the pretty little city of San Rafael, where I took the county road. From there to Petaluma, a distance of twenty-five miles, the road was hard and smooth, though rather hilly. But the hills were never too steep to coast down, and I didn't mind an occasional walk up. Just beyond Petaluma I took my lunch, and after a short rest started to ride once more over the hard and smooth, graveled and sprinkled roads or which Sonoma County is justly famous. Sixteen miles took me through Santa Rosa, and in a short time I was riding through the Russian River Valley, with orchards, vineyards and orange groves on every hand. Late in the afternoon I rode up to the house of a friend in Healdsburg, with sixty miles, but not a single picture to my credit.

The first day the sun had made things most uncomfortably hot; so I thought I would get the best of it next morning. I was ten miles from Healdsburg, climbing up the side of a hill, when I met it coming up the other side. From there I rode through a pretty little canyon; then I coasted down into a broad level valley which the road followed for twenty-five miles. The massive hulk of St. Helena and the Rocky Mountain range that bears its name, lies to the left; while a range of low rolling hills stretches along to the right. I passed through the town of St. Helena before noon, and a few miles beyond I stopped in the shade of some trees by the roadside to rest through the heat of the day.

When I started on again I had a mountain range to climb, and hard work 1 found it, too, for the roads were steep and dusty; the sun was boiling hot .n spite of the late hour; and I was not yet toughened down to my work. But when I got to the top of the range I had a splendid coast of three or four miles