OUTDOORS 



shadows. The white top of a wagon goes 

 past, with tow-headed children peeping from 

 the sides; the smoke of a camp-fire steals up 

 in the colorless air; the ring of an axe sounds 

 faintly; the feathered war-bonnet of a Sioux 

 chief gleams in a tuft of sun-illumined grass; 

 vanished hordes of buffalo thunder down a 

 distant slope, and shots of battle echo in 

 one's ears; the gathering tumult of cities 

 smites on the senses, the far wastes disap- 

 pear, and a forest of chimneys and spires 

 rises to take their places. The sails of cloud- 

 armadas furl slowly in the harboring skies, 

 and the sheets of commerce float in and usurp 

 their anchorage. All about is change. Stand- 

 ing on these eternal hills there comes with 

 crushing power the realization of how insig- 

 nificant is man, how absolute is nature. A 

 thousand races may rise and fall; the plough- 

 shares of one tribe may scar the slopes, and 

 the hoofs of a following tribe's war-horses 

 may beat back the harvest into a wilderness. 

 Man alone is least to be reckoned with. For 

 time and tide here rest the prairies, supreme 

 in the sense of an immortal repose, unfretted 

 by the lapses of the years. 



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