leather, reached at last, by way of the Missouri, St. Louis. Lewis and Clark, the greatest pathfinders of the United States, had returned from the discovery of a new world as large as half Europe. "What Radisson had begun in 1659-1660, what Verendrye had attempted when he found the way barred by the Rockies, was completed by Lewis and Clark in 1805. It was the last act in that drama of heroes who carved empire out of wilderness; and all alike possessed the same heroqualities-courage and endurance that were indomitable, the strength that is generated in life-and-death grapple with naked primordial reality, and that reckless daring which defies life and death. Those were hero days;

and they produced hero-types, who flung themselves against the impossible and conquered it. What they conquered we have inherited. It is the Great North-West."

Miss Laut's vivid narrative has all the fascination of romance. Her picturesque style is suited to her adventurous theme. Her book records the pathfinding of empire, the winning of the West, the gaining of the noblest heritage God ever gave to man. The illustrations of this article are examples of the still more numerous engravings of Miss Laut's book; but they do not present the sharpness of definition of the originals, because they are only copies, the shadow of a shade.

THE STAMPEDE.

BY A. L. CALDWELL.

The red sun breaks through muddy lakes of haze and rifted cloud,
And still and gray the prairies lay as moveless as the shroud;
But a distant roar was on the air, a rumble from afar,

And a dust cloud brown was sweeping down from the blue horizon's bar.

Above the line the great horns shine, beneath, the sharp hoofs speed,
And the solid ground shakes with the sound of a herd in full stampede.
And close to the lead is a coal-black steed, and a boy with a dashing bay,
Then a man with a roan who rides alone, whose hair is streaked with gray.

While the West still glowed they mounted and rode, and the reckless race began
Through the dim starlight of the prairie night, and still they galloped on.
For life is cheap when men must keep these runaway brutes beside,
And until they stop, or the horses drop, it is ride and ride and ride.

The sun from high in a murky sky, shines hot on the dusty track

Where two men ride by the great herd's side, still led by the fiery black;
An hour ago on a treacherous slough the gallant bay went down,

And a young voice clear rang out a cheer for the men who galloped on.

And now the black is falling back, panting, with low-hung head,

And shortening strides though his dust-gray sides the spurs have marked with red.
He is out of the race, but into his place the gray haired rider sweeps,
And foot by foot and inch by inch to the head of the herd he creeps.

And along the flank of the surging rank, over the trampling noise,
The echoes break as his pistols speak in sharp and threatening voice,
Till the danger is past, and they turn at last, with heavy, plunging tread,
Tired and blown, and the plucky roan swings slowly 'round ahead.

Give praise to the old gray veteran bold, who turned the maddened throng,
Nor let it lack for the man with the black, who held the lead so long;

But what shall we add of the bare-faced lad, who knew that his race was done,
When, helpless, he lay by his fallen bay, but cheered his comrades on?