156 A Pre-Columbian Dinner 



lilies. Afar oiF, acres of nut-brown sedge 

 made fitting background for those meadow 

 trafts that were still green, while close at 

 hand, more beautiful than all, were struggling 

 growths held down by the golden-dodder's 

 net that overspread them. 



It does not need trees or rank shrubbery to 

 make a wilderness. This low-lying traft to- 

 day, with but a summer's growth above it, is 

 as wild and lonely as are the Western plains. 

 Lonely, that is, as man thinks, but not for- 

 saken. The wily mink, the pert weasel, the 

 musk-rat, and the meadow-mouse ramble in 

 safety through it. The great blue heron, its 

 stately cousin, the snowy egret, and the dainty 

 least bittern find it a congenial home. 



The fiery dragon-fly darts and lazy butter- 

 flies drift across the blooming waste ; bees 

 buzz angrily as you approach ; basking snakes 

 bid you defiance. Verily, this is wild life's 

 domain and man is out of place. 



It was not always so. The land is sink- 

 ing, and what now of that older time when 

 it was far above its present level, — a high, 

 dry, upland traft, along which flowed a clear 

 and rapid stream ? The tell-tale arrow-point 

 is our guide, and wherever the sod is broken 



