NOVEMBER 123 



inei'cury (lr()p[)ini;- to fil'tiH'ii Ix'low. On November 

 twenty-fourth, four years ag'o, in central Kansas, 

 after days when one soui^ht the shady places for 

 comfort, and after a very mild afternoon, a bliz- 

 zard rushed down on us during the nig-ht. Early 

 in the evening small birds, perhaps horned larks, 

 circled and called pathetically above the town. All 

 the next day the snow fell. On the twenty-seventh 

 there were four or five inches on the level, with a 

 temperature of twenty below. Friends arriving 

 after a twenty-two mile drive across the open 

 prairie were almost frozen. A year ago yester- 

 day we drove for miles across unfenced lands in 

 South Dakota, in the brilliant sunlight and mild 

 air of a perfect afternoon, to visit the site of an 

 ancient battle, in which Indians had a share. The 

 earlier snows had passed entirely. The prairie 

 swells were clad in brown grasses, sprinkled on 

 some slopes by small granite boulders with bits of 

 mica shining in the sunlight. Our spades struck 

 into earth concealing the hastily buried victims 

 of the battle, and uncovered jawbones, femora, 

 and fragments of skull — to the bountiful, re- 

 morseless sunlight. 



GrinneU, November 26, 1898. 

 November in this region has at least two phases 

 to which she has accustomed her friends (or ene- 

 mies), and she has presented both of them this 



