117 



IN THE AMERICAN DESERT 



Children who are lucky enough to have read Captain 

 Mayne Eeid's charming tales, will remember all sorts of 

 exciting stories of animals ; but as so many of the old 

 books have fallen out of fashion, we will give a couple of 

 adventures taken from the ' Desert Home,' and no child 

 who has once looked at these will be content without 

 getting hold of the original volume. 



The ' Home ' was in the great American desert, which 

 spreads over a large tract of country in the west of 

 Texas and the east of New Mexico, nearly to the foot of 

 the Eocky Mountains. People who live in such places 

 must expect strange sights and sounds, and the battle of 

 the snakes, which the settlers one day witnessed, was 

 the sort of thing one might see at any moment. 



Eobert Eolfe, his wife and family had gone out West, 

 to find a place where they might build a cabin, and live 

 a happy and peaceable life. All sorts of things had to be 

 thought of before a suitable spot was fixed on, but at last 

 a log cabin was put up, and everyone began to hope that, 

 by the time the winter came, the house would be snug 

 and comfortable. 



One day they all started for one of the salt springs 

 which are to be found in such numbers through this 

 region, and took a huge kettle with them, to boil down 

 the salt before they carried it home. They had just 

 finished dinner, and were sitting over the fire, when they 

 heard a blue-jay screaming from a tree near by, and 



