carry messages, like carrier-pigeons. The
next one we come across we'll try it."

That afternoon we caught a fine specimen, and Jack securely
fastened this message to it and turned it adrift:

"Schooner Rattletrap, September --, 188-: Latitude.
42.50; Longitude, 99.35. To Whom it may Concern: From Prairie
Flower, bound for Deadwood. All well except Old Blacky, who has
an appetite."

The night after our stop by the unfinished house we again
camped on the open prairie, a quarter of a mile from a settler's
house, where we got water for the horses. This house was really a
"dugout," being more of a cellar than a house. It was built in
the side of a little bank, the back of the sod roof level with
the ground, and the front but two or three feet above it.

"I'd be afraid, if I were living in it, that a heavy rain in
the night might fill it up, and float the bedstead, and bump my
nose on the ceiling," said Jack.

Ir had been a warm afternoon, but when we went to bed it was
cooler, though there was no wind stirring. The smoke of our
camp-fire went straight up. There was no moon, but the sky was
clear, and we remarked that we had not seen the stars look so
bright any night before. The front of our wagon stood toward the
northwest. We went to bed, but at two o'clock we were awakened by
a most violent shaking of the cover. The wind was blowing a gale,
and the whole top seemed about to be going by the board. We
scrambled up, and I heard Jack's voice calling for me to come
out. The cover-bows were bent far over, and the canvas pressed in
on the side to the southwest till it seemed as if it must burst.
The front end of the top had gone out and was cracking in the
wind. I crept forward, and us I did so I felt the wagon rise up
on the windward side and bump back on the ground. I concluded we
were doomed to u wreck, and called to Ollie to get out as fast us
he could. I supposed a hard storm had struck us, but as I went
over the dash-board I was astonished to see the stars shining us
brightly as ever in the deep, dark sky. Jack was clinging to the
rear wagon wheel on the windward side, which was all that had
saved it from capsizing. He called to me to take hold of the
tongue and steer the craft around with the stern to the gale. I
did so, while he turned on the wheel.

[Illustration: When the Winds are Breathing Low]

As it came around the loose sides of the cover began to flutter and
crack,