Crossing the Great Plains 51 



day over again in the mysterious evening. 

 Somehow he could not blot them out, and 

 they would come in spite of him ; the vast 

 stretches of rolling prairies, the antelope, 

 the coyotes, like those that were now 

 making the night hideous ; the bleaching 

 buffalo bones, the buttes, the canyons, the 

 cottonwoods, the cloudless blue sky, intense 

 and pitiless. All came and went in the 

 dancing firelight. 



" Benjamin, Benjamin," called the boy's 

 mother, thrusting her head out of a slit in 

 the canvas. " You stop dreaming and come 

 to bed this minute." 



" Yes, mother," replied the boy, heaving 

 a deep sigh. "I am coming." 



The dreams in the dancing camp-fire were 

 so much more pleasant than those in the 

 schooner that he hated to leave them. But 

 his mother's word was law, so after putting 

 a little more fuel upon the fire, he climbed 

 into the wagon, where the boys and their 



