of stone had become detached and lay piled one upon another down the whole declivity of its hundreds of feet. The track is cut along the shore of this (as it is believed) bottomless lake, whose peculiar dark and sombre color would seem typical of that bourne to which it is feared some of us are wending; though, for the comfort of timid souls, I can say that it is not so bad, viewed from a standpoint of safety, and that they have only to take heed to their ways to enable them to pass on to green pastures. Still, I can imagine that suddenly, when the judgment prepared for the wicked shall come, this gloomy lake might become illumined with flames, and that these massive blocks of stone might be wrenched from their foundations, falling upon the bodies of sinners already seething in flames of boiling waters beneath. Impious imagery like this has haunted the Farther on the track passes through dense woods of pine. The gentleman of color who had charge of the sleeping-car, patronizingly remarked that it was fortunate we should pass through them in the night-time, as they were dark and gloomy; and as it proved that the night was also dark and impenetrable, nothing could be distinguished. I know that the surroundings looked sombre enough by the morning's light, which developed heavy clouds and rain, through which I noticed some straggling pines, whose tops I was unable to dis A RIVER SCENE IN SOUTHERN MINNESOTA. brains of fanatics in past ages, and still tinctures | our dreams of God's justice; and here, amid this phenomenon of volcanic eruption, these old superstitions might well seem verified in reality. For miles on, mountains of ledged rocks overhang deep, narrow streams, assuming varied forms of architecture. Towers, castles and turrets loom up in distinct and artistic proportions at unexpected intervals, filling the fancy with visions of the wild and romantic adventure of olden times. Huge trees are twisted like reeds into the very heart of rocks, suggestive of the mighty upheavals and convulsions of nature in the centuries lost to tradition. Gradually, rocks and sandstone assimilate in modified degrees. Black earth and white sand lay side by side in marked distinctness, as if streaked with the soil of the antipodes. One views these facts of nature, which outrival dreams of the imagination, with awe and wonder. tinguish from the car window. Therefore, I conclude that the forests of pines through which we passed were of fabulous height, and judged, by inductive reasoning, that their depths were of inexplicable. gloom. Clouds and rain greeted my arrival at St. Paul, where I passed the day in friendly quarters. Next morning, with limited knowledge of the city, I proceeded by the Northern Pacific Road en route for Clear Lake, the sun still lugubriously veiling his face in mist and rain. Oh, inhospitable sun, thus to withhold the light of your countenance from weary sojourners in a strange land! In consequence of a comfortable, nonchalant slowness on the part of the train, quite out of character with Western enterprise, certainly, I had plenty of time for reflective enjoyment of the scenery, which, however, was somewhat tame, except from its expansiveness, and the awakening sense of one's faculties to reach the far-distant horizon. One feels his own limitations, here on these broad plains. Happy he who joyously reaches out to grasp the grand possibilities shadowed forth in the overstepping boundaries of awakening knowledge! To my surprise, quite a number of persons occupied the cars whose destination was beyond my own. in the face of a cold wind we prepared for our drive over the intervening space of four miles, followed by the dogs Flash and Ned. I determined in my own mind to make friends with these quadrupeds the first thing on my arrival. I am I had imagined myself to have reached the extreme limits of safety, and looked upon these adventurers as victims deluded by the baseless chimeras of Western prophecy of gold and precious stones, in the far-off Utopia of their dreams. At one of the stations, with a village glimmering in the distance, an object was seen advancing at full speed, which proved to be a horse and buggy. The effect was exhilarating, and insensibly appealed to one's sense of poetic beauty. On the broad prairie, this one phantom-like vision swooping down upon us in undulating movements, swift as thought! Two persons occupied the vehicle. One, the lady, floated down from her seat, so it seemed to me; I know there was no mincing or dallying with steps; she was out and in the cars without apparent effort or perceptible motion. After conversing with the friend whom she had come to meet, "she melted as a breath into the wind." For though I was alive to every subtle change, I do not know how she reached her seat in the buggy. But she was there, and as we passed on, they were seen speedWhile at St. Paul, I learned that tracks of bears ing over the limitless space like birds flying in the had been discovered in the vicinity of the very air, or like a dream of beauty fading in the morn-house itself. This news, to one conscious of sins ing light. These broad Western prairies are conducive to freedom and grace of movement, it is clear; and the picture was a pretty one. "The team" awaited me at the station, driven by its proprietress. After looking in upon the grocery and post-office-happily combined in one A LAKE SCENE BY MOONLIGHT. pretty clear-sighted where my own safety is concerned, and these dogs looked dangerous. of irreverence, together with full knowledge of Scriptural authority for the doom of such, was a startling revelation; and that it behooved me to be on my guard, was terribly apparent. A cold rain set in which kept us indoors. In despair, we concluded to ignore the weather, and with anticipations of wonderful discoveries, ventured to the beach in pursuit of agates-a fabulous stone supposed to have been found upon these shores, but now extinct, though with pathetic credulity still sought after by amateurs like ourselves. Presently, and unexpectedly, a shower coming up, we made an inglorious retreat to the house, with garments limp and drooping, where now, with satisfactory experimental knowledge of the state of the weather, we patiently await brighter days. Last night the whip-poor-will repeated his plaint among the trees, in voice of remarkable distinctness. In fact, there was no competition, all well conducted birds being safely ensconced in the domesticity of nests, or left in lonely celibacy, blinking upon the tree-tops. The silence was profound; nothing to distract our attention as an audience, or bias our judgment as "reporters." As an elocutionary performance it was doubtless a success, so far as it went; and as I listened and wondered, I was lost in mazes of doubt as to which was the human, the bird or myself. Another day. This morning there is a commotion among the denizens of groves. It may be that they are tuning their voices for a grand triumphant jubilee, in honor of the glorious orb of day, now sailing aloft in unclouded splendor, and in whose radiance they will bask in happy unconsciousness all through the summer days. Leaves dance in the sunlight, the swaying branches reveal glimpses of the lake gleaming clear and peaceful in the morning sun. Out-of-door life is becoming delightful reality, where hand in hand with Nature, time will become a myth, days and months will blend in long, restful dreams of peace, "Sufficient unto the day" will free from care. be chanted in soft breezes, and murmured in the rippling sound of waves, sorrow and grief will melt in the cadenced music of eternal symphonies! But not upon the flitting tourist will gifts like these be lavished. Only to patient worshippers in Nature's haunts, with hearts attuned to her con ditions, will divination of her sweet secrets be vouchsafed. We must bring to her shrine offerings of trustful, loving hearts, before we shall receive knowledge of celestial joy; we must be come en rapport with Nature through aspirations after truth, before we come to our reward and dwell in her courts. One feels repaid for cold rains and cloudy weather, by this mystical transfiguration of Nature under the great painter's hand. Suddenly, at his royal beck, life becomes superabundant; leaf and bush glow in reflected radiance, flowers with upturned faces blushingly receive the gift of beauty; grass springs in vivid mossy green, under the benign influence of his effulgent glance. Listen the world of feathered songsters are waking from the torpor to which, with wisdom surpassing the human, they cheerfully submit, awaiting the reactionary processes of Nature, under God's laws, to give them release. To realize in fullest poetic sense the kingdom of the ornithological creation, one needs to become oblivious of the conditions which surround his grosser nature, and allow his thoughts to hover in mid-air, enwreathed amid the branches upon the swaying tree-top, until insensibly, that subtle mag FIELD MICE netism which accompanies rhythmic motion, steals away the senses in forgetfulness, and he becomes lost in the floating existence of these airy inhabitants of winds and zephyrs, and in dreamy con HARVESTING. tentment watches their happy occupation among leaves and flowers "from early morn to dewy eve," verifying the adage by positive knowledge that it is "the early bird who catches the worm," and, by deductive inference, that it is the laggard who labors all the day. One learns lessons of wisdom in Nature's tabernacles: at length he yields himself to a paradisaical state of existence, and revels in the harmonious music of the spheres, while yet, with taint of earth, he catches familiar intonations in the voice of birds, closely allied to the human. But listen the world is alive with happy sounds! Who says that the forests are lonely or dull? Sit, I pray you, for one brief, happy hour, beneath the gracious favors! Listen! harmonious modulations fill the air with softest music. One can but exclaim that the day is perfect-a hackneyed phrase, it is true, and one which has already done good service. But then, if it has been many times repeated, we must remember that there have been a few such days within our own experience; days flashing from out the past like brilliants in a dark sitting-as also that printed language dates still farther back, and that the sensations of that period were very much like those produced under similar circumstances in our own. And again, has not the country orator many times announced that language is inadequate to express his sentiments? Proof sufficient that the fault of repetition lies in the sparseness of language itself! Then one must be truthful at the risk of criticism, and recognize the fact in the barbarous past of pure unadulterated thought, in which we of the enlightened present (as we fondly believe) are but imitators. "There is nothing new under the sun," said Solomon, and RURAL SPORTS. SMOOTH-HEADED, twist and torture ideas as we may into a semblance rustling oaks at Clear Lake enwrapt in Nature's of originality, the fact remains the same, that they are but weakened dilutions of some grand old truth, which in trumpet tones has sounded through the ages. PRAIRIE PHEASANT. It is true that the city's hum floats in far-off remembrance, and instead, the voice of birds and insects fill the air with sounds of peaceful communion, so far as one can judge from limited observation. Though that there are jars among these breezy occupants of woods, is a possibility I am led to conjecture from indications which have in various ways come to my knowledge. Why, for instance, any sane bird should go shrieking about the woods in frenzied cries of "Kill deer," "kill deer," would seem inexplicable on other grounds than that of petulancy, to say the least of it. One might almost fancy him possessed with murderous intent, and fear that the whole kingdom of birds were in danger from the assassin's beak. The turtle-dove would seem to be born to an inheritance of sorrow, and in sombre-hued respectability doomed to pass her days in lamentation. "He dwells apart as one bereft," is true of her saddened life. It would seem from observation of her proclivities, that her sorrows have closely allied her to the habitations of men, where she is found in fearless occupancy of barns and lofts, upon which domiciles with generous care have been provided for her, and where she rears her young in lonely withdrawal from her kind. baffled philosophers-and in which, for myself, from a standpoint of tranquil repose, I utterly renounce all complicity, as unprofitable and dis couraging evidence of one's own limits of thought and discovery; and which, furthermore, I am content to regard under the head of unfathomable mysteries of being. With this recognition of human fallibility, I shall henceforth, in these sketches, dwell only in the apparent, leaving to sages the entangling mazes of speculative knowledge. Enough for me the glory of sunlight, the singing of birds, and the soothing melody which breathes in cadenced music around the path of life. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." "Rest, rest from your labors," still floats in choral symphonies among the tree-tops, and dies away in sighing breezes. CHAPTER II. THE day had been a day of wind and storm; The wind was laid, the storm was overpast, And, stooping from the zenith, bright and warm Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last. BRYANT. Events crowd each other in surprising variety beside these placid lakes and upon these quiet plains. Yesterday we barely escaped encounter with a whirlwind, which came with the slow, WILD PIGEON OF THE WEST. Thus it is apparent that the conditions which govern the kingdom of birds are as stringent and implacable as those which mark human distinctions. stealthy mutterings of doom, rolling its thunderProblems of Nature's laws have in all ages bolts over and over, "like a sweet morsel under |