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424          THE CHICAGO RECORD'S
the atmospheric mail carrier would have a good, long rest after his flight.
Then there is the balloon man. He has sprung up all over the country, and with him are flying-machine men, both of whom are confident, according to their assertions, of taking a flying jump off some mountain peak in Washington or Montana and in a few hours landing softly and neatly in the midst of the startled gold-diggers in the Klondike. This is the only real airline to the gold diggings that has been projected. It is not yet opened, but a New York man, who calls himself Don Carlos Stevens, has informed the world at large that he has under construction a balloon that is destined to transport passengers and freight from Takou pass to the Klondike regions.
Mr. Stevens is authority for the statement that a couple of women are engaged in sewing the "gores" together, and then it will only remain to take the balloon somewhere out of the city of Greater New York and "coal" it. Other balloon men say that what Mr. Stevens meant to say, or what the telegraph instrument should have made him say, was "coat" instead of coal. This balloon, according to Mr. Stevens, will be large enough to carry 8 or o1 passengers and 6 or 7 tons of freight.
The bicycle man is not going to permit the balloon man to get ahead of him on any proposition. So that old stand-by, "a syndicate of wealthy New Yorkers," proposes to establish trading posts and stations along the route from somewhere to the Klondike. This route is to be a bicycle path, and the bicycle, of course, is one of the specially designed kind, made only for this particular purpose. A picture of the bicycle indicates that it has a kind of an out-rigger attachment at the end of which is another bicycle wheel, but whether that wheel is in^.-                                |