IN PRAIRIE-LANDS 



as years rolled on the traces of the original 

 prairies were almost all blotted out. But 

 there still rests in remote corners of this region 

 the recollection of tameless tribes and ancient 

 days, the flavor of times when never a shod 

 hoof of beast dinted the grasses, and no face 

 but the copper-colored face of the savage was 

 ever seen. 



Standing on one of the great hills of the 

 north-west and looking out over the yet 

 trackless miles of uncultivated prairies, there 

 is the glamour of the past in the air, a halo 

 of by-gone years faintly discernible in the 

 clouds that hang above. These vast amphi- 

 theatres have all the significance of banquet- 

 halls deserted, with floors of level grasses and 

 folding draperies of sky and cloud. What 

 panoramas of moving Indian villages and 

 battle-etched pages the old days furnish! 

 Now there are only long reaches of tumbled 

 hills, grass-lined, and the galloping tread of 

 the winds. There is here, and here only, 

 that sense of outdoors which ' the treeless 

 stretches of the prairie give, extending on as 

 a sea, till the far-off horizon drops like a cur- 

 tain to meet it. Great forests do not bring 

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