achieved. The following winter Mackenzie left the West, never to return. The story of his travels was published early in the nineteenth century, and he was knighted by the English king. The remainder of his life was spent quietly on an estate in Scotland, where he died in 1820. Lewis and Clark Cross the Rockies from St. Louis to the Mouth of the Columbia. This year is being celebrated by a World's Fair at Portland, Oregon, Only one other explorer had ever been so far west in this regionyoung Verendrye, fifty years before; but the Frenchman had been compelled to turn back without crossing the mountains, and the two Americans were to assail and conquer what had proved an impassable barrier. At length was heard the roar of the Great Falls of the Missouri. It took five days to portage past the cataract. At length the mighty Missouri, whose windings they had traced for three thousand miles, dwindled to a 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 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, While the West still glowed they mounted and rode, and the reckless race began 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; 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. And along the flank of the surging rank, over the trampling noise, Give praise to the old gray veteran bold, who turned the maddened throng, But what shall we add of the bare-faced lad, who knew that his race was done, |