I thought of it as we went through, or rather over, the prairies.

The haze or mirage of the prairies is wonderfully fantastic and deceptive.

The prairies are not as flat in surface as one expects to find them.

There are great tracts of what are called bushy prairies, covered with a thick growth of hazel and sassafras, jessamine and honey-suckle, and abounding in grape-vines.

The spongy turf of her prairies bore the weight of many a fort, and drank the blood of the slain in many a battle, when all around her was at peace.

The mustangs which roam in wild freedom on the prairies of the far west are descended from the noble Spanish steeds that were brought over by the wealthy cavaliers who accompanied Fernando Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico, in his expedition to the New World in 1518.

Thus, those who have not visited the far-off prairies and seen the mustang in all the glory of untrammelled freedom, can form no adequate idea of its beauty, fleetness, and strength.

Hence wild asses also are found in the western prairies.

He, too, must come to the grave one day, and quit the beautiful prairies and his loved rifle.

"The Pale-face traders are glad to meet with the Peigans," began Cameron, who determined to make no allusion to his knowledge that they were a war party, "for they wish to be friends with all the children of the woods and prairies.

If ye mean be that 'larfin in to myself,' it's because I'm thinkin' o' a chap as once comed out to the prairies.

" "Well, this gentleman engaged me an' another hunter to go a trip with him into the prairies, so off we sot one fine day on three hosses, with our blankets at our backswe wos to depend on the rifle for victuals.

Jist as we wos partin' I said, says I, 'D'ye know what it wos we lived on for a week arter we wos well-nigh starved in the prairies?'" "'What,' says he, 'when we got yon capital marrowbones?'

It was not till they had set out on their homeward journey that Dick Varley's spirits revived, and it was not till they reached the beautiful prairies on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and galloped over the greensward towards the Mustang Valley, that Dick ventured to tell Joe Blunt what his feelings had been.

In a few minutes the cavalcade was ready, and away they went towards the prairies, with the bold major at their head.

A couple of hours' gallop brought them to the edge of one of those open plains which sometimes break up the woodland near the verge of the great prairies.

Rifles were brought out after the feast was over, just before the sun went down into its bed on the western prairies, and "the nail" was soon surrounded by bullets, tipped by Joe Blunt and Jim Scraggs, and of course driven home by Dick Varley, whose "silver rifle" had now become in its owner's hand a never-failing weapon.

Races, too, were started, and here again Dick stood pre-eminent; and when night spread her dark mantle over the scene, the two best fiddlers in the settlement were placed on empty beer-casks, and some danced by the light of the monster fires, while others listened to Joe Blunt as he recounted their adventures on the prairies and among the Rocky Mountains.

Many a grizzly bear did the famous "silver rifle" lay low, and many a wild, exciting chase and adventure did Dick go through; but during his occasional visits to the Mustang Valley he was wont to say to Joe Blunt and Henriwith whom he always sojournedthat "nothin' he ever felt or saw came up to his first grand dash over the western prairies into the heart of the Rocky Mountains."

But even the prairies of the West are destined to waft their superabundance here.

Half a mile south of its banks the Indians procure a kind of red pipe stone, similar to that brought from the Coteau des Prairies, but of a duller red color.

Grass and flowers cover the prairies as far as the eye can reach.

And ye, who by the prairies your childhood's joys have seen, Sing of your waving grasses, your velvet miles of green: But when my memory wanders down to the dear old home I hear, amid my dreaming, the seething of the foam, The wet wind through the pine trees, the sobbing crash and roar, The mighty surge and thunder of the surf along the shore.

If I put a weathercock on my house, Sir, I want it to tell which way the wind blows up aloft,off from the prairies to the ocean, or off from the ocean to the prairies, or any way it wants to blow!

If I put a weathercock on my house, Sir, I want it to tell which way the wind blows up aloft,off from the prairies to the ocean, or off from the ocean to the prairies, or any way it wants to blow!