ng that rain is nigh at hand. Then
with what interest at each sunset is the horizon invested, when the eye
can pierce space to a vast extent, and mark the fog-banks which tower
afar off, and distinguish the gathering clouds from the dark-backed herd
of buffaloes or a group of Indians on a march. Every prairie "roll,"
every dip and undulation of that vast surface, had its own interest,
till at length I learned to think that all other prospects must be tame,
spiritless, and unexciting, in comparison with that glorious expanse,
where sky and earth were one, and where the clouds alone threw shadows
upon the vast plain.

The habit of a hunter's life in such scenes, the constant watchfulness
against sudden peril, inspire a frame of mind in which deep
reflectiveness is blended with a readiness and promptitude of
action,--gifts which circumstances far more favorable to moral training
do not always supply. The long day passed in total solitude, since very
often the party separates to rendezvous at nightfall, necessarily calls
for thought,--not, indeed, the dreamy revery of the visionary, forgetful
of himself and all the world, but of that active, stirring mental
operation which demands effort and will. If fanciful pictures of
the future as we would wish to make it, intervene, they come without
displacing the stern realities of the present, any more than the far
distances of a picture interfere with the figures of the foreground.

Forgive, most kind reader, the prolix fondness with which I linger on
this theme. Fortune gave me but scant opportunity of cultivation, but
my best schooling was obtained upon the prairies. It was there I learned
the virtue of self-reliance,--the only real independence. It was there
I taught myself to endure reverses without disappointment, and bear
hardships without repining. It was there I came to know that he who
would win an upward way in life must not build upon some self-imagined
superiority, but boldly enter the lists with others, and make
competitorship the test of his capacity. They were inferior
acquirements, it is true; but I learned also to bear hunger and cold,
and want of rest and sleep, which in my after-life were not without
their value. It would savor too much of a "bull" for him who writes his
own memoirs to apologize for egotism; still, I do feel compunctions of
conscience about the length of these personal details,--and now to my
story.

While we pursued our hunting pastime over t