ntil the eye, in straining to measure its
extent, was wearied by the effort, and the plain became a waving sea of
rainbow colors; of green and yellow, gold and purple. Again, they passed
a gravelly beach, on which the yellow sand was studded with a thousand
sets of brilliant shells, and little rivulets flowed in from level
prairies, or stealthily crept out from under roots of trees or tangled
vines, and hastened to be hidden in the bosom of the great father of
waters.

They floated on, through the dewy morning hours, when the leaves were
shining in the sunlight, and the birds were singing joyously; before the
summer heat had dried the moisture, or had forced the feathered
songsters to the shade. At noon, when the silence made the solitude
oppressive; when the leaves hung wilting down, nor fluttered in the
fainting wind: when the prairies were no longer waving like the sea, but
trembling like the atmosphere around a heated furnace: when the _mirage_
hung upon the plain: tall trees were seen growing in the air, and among
them stalked the deer, and elk, and buffalo: while between them and the
ground, the brazen sky was glowing with the sun of June: when nothing
living could be seen, save when the _voyageur's_ approach would startle
some wild beast slaking his thirst in the cool river, or a flock of
waterfowl were driven from their covert, where the willow branches,
drooping, dipped their leaves of silvery gray within the water. They
floated on till evening, when the sun approached the prairie, and his
broad, round disc, now shorn of its dazzling beams, defined itself
against the sky and grew florid in the gathering haze: when the birds
began to reappear, and flitted noiselessly among the trees, in busy
preparation for the night: when beasts of prey crept out from
lurking-places, where they had dozed and panted through the hours of
noon: when the wilderness grew vocal with the mingled sounds of lowing
buffalo, and screaming panther, and howling wolf; until the shadows rose
from earth, and travelled from the east; until the dew began to fall,
the stars came out, and night brought rest and dreams of home!

Thus they floated on, "from morn till dewy eve," and still no sign of
human life, neither habitation nor footprint, until one day--it was the
twenty-fifth of June, more than two weeks since they had entered the
wilderness--in gliding past a sandy beach, they recognised the impress
of a naked foot! Following it for some dis