I said to my comrades, as we were about to descend from the towering bluffs into the prairie, "We will take that buffalo trail, where the traveling herds have slashed down the high grass, and aim for that blue point, rising, as you can just discern, above this ocean of grass. A good day's work will bring us over this vast meadow before sunset." We entered the trail, and slowly progressed on our way, being obliged to follow the winding paths of the buffaloes, for the grass was higher than the backs of our horses.

Soon after we entered my Indian guide dismounted slowly from his horse, and, lying prostrate on the ground with his face in the dirt, he cried, and was talking to the Spirit of the brave: -"For," said he, "over this beautiful plain dwells the Spirit of Fire! He rides in yonder cloud his face blackens with rage at the sound of the trampling hoofs the fire bow is in his hand - he draws it across the path of the Indian, and, quicker than lightning, a thousand flames rise to destroy him: such is the talk of my fathers, and the ground is whitened with their bones.

A

“It was here that the brave son of Wahchee'ton and the strong-armed warriors of his band, just twelve moons since, licked the fire from the blazing wand of that great magician. Their pointed spears were drawn upon the backs of the treacherous Sioux, whose swifter-flying horses led them in vain to the midst of this valley of death. circular cloud sprang up from the prairie around them! it was raised, and their doom was fixed by the Spirit of Fire! It was on this vast plain of fire grass that waves over our heads that the swift foot of Mahto'ga was laid. It is here, also, that the fleet-bounding wild horse mingles

his bones with the red man; and the eagle's wing is melted as he darts over its surface. Friends! it is the season of fire; and I fear from the smell of the wind that the Spirit is awake!"

Red Thunder said no more, but mounted his wild horse, and, waving his hand, his red shoulders were seen rapidly vanishing as he glided through the thick mazes of waving grass. We were on his trail, and busily traced him until the midday sun had brought us to the ground, with our refreshments spread before us. He partook of them not, but stood like a statue, while his black eyes, in sullen silence, swept the horizon round; and then, with a deepdrawn sigh he gracefully sunk to the earth, and laid with his face to the ground. Our buffalo tongues and pemmican and marrow fat were spread before us; and we were in the full enjoyment of these dainties of the western world, when, quicker than the frightened elk, our Indian friend sprang upon his feet.

Red Thunder was on his feet his long arm was stretched over the grass, and his blazing eyeballs starting from their sockets. "White man," said he, "see ye that small cloud lifting itself from the prairie? he rises! the hoofs of our horses have waked him! The Fire Spirit is awake this wind is from his nostrils, and his face is this way!" No more but his swift horse darted under him, and he slid gracefully over the waving grass as it was bent by the wind. Our viands were left, and we were swift on his trail. The extraordinary leaps of his wild horse occasionally raised his red shoulders to view, and he sank again in the waving billows of grass.

The tremulous wind was hurrying by us fast, and on it was borne the agitated wing of the soaring eagle. His

neck was stretched for the towering bluff, and the thrilling screams of his voice told the secret that was behind him. Our horses were swift, and we struggled hard; yet hope was feeble, for the bluff was yet blue, and nature nearly exhausted. The sunshine was dying, and a cool shadow was advancing over the plain. Not daring to look back, we strained every nerve:

The roar of a distant cataract seemed gradually advancing on us; the winds increased, the howling tempest was maddening behind us, and the swift-winged beetle and heath hens instinctively drew their straight lines over our heads. The fleet-bounding antelope passed us also; and the still swifter long-legged hare, who leaves but a shadow as he flies. Here was no time for thought, but I recollect the heavens were overcast, the distant thunder was heard, the lightning's glare was reddening the scene, and the smell that came on the winds struck terror to my soul! The piercing yell of my savage guide at this moment came back upon the winds - his robe was seen waving in the air, and his foaming horse leaping up the towering bluff.

Our breath and our sinews, in this last struggle for life, were just enough to bring us to its summit. We had risen from a sea of fire! "Great God!" I exclaimed, "how sublime to gaze into that valley, where the elements of nature are so strangely convulsed!” Ask not the poet or painter how it looked, for they can tell you not; but ask the naked savage, and watch the electric twinge of his manly nerves and muscles, as he pronounces the lengthened "hush-sh-," his hand on his mouth, and his glaring eyeballs looking you to the very soul !

I beheld beneath me an immense cloud of black smoke,

which extended from one extremity of this vast plain to the other, and seemed majestically to roll over its surface in a bed of liquid fire; and above this mighty desolation, as it rolled along, the whitened smoke, pale with terror, was streaming and rising up in magnificent cliffs to heaven! I stood secure but tremblingly, and heard the maddening wind, which hurled this monster o'er the land —I heard the roaring thunder, and saw its thousand lightnings flash; and then I saw behind the black and smoking desolation of this storm of fire!

-From "Manners and Customs of the North American Indians."

KIT CARSON'S RIDE.

BY JOAQUIN MILLER.

We lay in the grasses and the sunburnt clover
That spread on the ground like a great brown cover
Northward and southward, and west and away
To the Brazos, to where our lodges lay,
One broad and unbroken sea of brown,
Awaiting the curtains of night to come down
To cover us over and conceal our flight
With my brown bride, won from an Indian town
That lay in the rear the full ride of a night.

We lay low in the grass on the broad plain levels,
Old Revels and I, and my stolen brown bride;
And the heavens of blue and the harvest of brown
And beautiful clover were welded as one,

To the right and the left, in the light of the sun.

"Forty full miles, if a foot, to ride,
Forty full miles, if a foot, and the devils
Of red Comanches are hot on the track
When once they strike it. Let the sun go
down
Soon, very soon," muttered bearded old Revels,
As he peered at the sun, lying low on his back,
Holding fast to his lasso. Then he jerked at his steed,
And he sprang to his feet, and glanced swiftly around,
And then dropped, as if shot, with his ear to the ground;
Then again to his feet, and to me, to my bride,
While his eyes were like fire, his face like a shroud,
His form like a king, and his beard like a cloud,
And his voice loud and shrill, as if blown from a reed
“Pull, pull in your lassos, and bridle to steed,
And speed you, if ever, for life you would speed,
And ride for your lives, for your lives you must ride!
For the plain is aflame, the prairie on fire,
And feet of wild horses hard flying before
I hear like a sea breaking high on the shore,
While the buffalo come like a surge of the sea,
Driven far by the flame, driving fast on us three,
As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in his ire."

We drew in the lassos, seized saddle and rein,

Threw them on, sinched them on, sinched them over again,

And again drew the girth, cast aside the macheers,
Cut away tapidaros, loosed the sash from its fold,
Cast aside the catenas red-spangled with gold,
And gold-mounted Colt's, the companions of years,
Cast the silken serapes to the wind in a breath,
And so bared to the skin sprang all haste to the horse