NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
The prairie 
pond, 
In Indian 
days. 
Artificial 
waters, 
beasts and Indians have about departed, but 
the prairie pond in its wild rice circlet still 
exists; at morning and evening the red 
of the sky, the pale yellow of the rice, the 
green of the flag gleam upon its waters; and 
at night the moon and the stars are reflected 
from its shining surface. It seems about the 
only surviving feature of a nature that has 
rapidly passed away before the axe and the 
plough. It belonged to the Indians, and is 
associated with them. JI can see them now, a 
band of fifty or more, bonneted and painted 
for war, dashing down a divide and plunging 
into that prairie pond to let their hard-ridden 
ponies drink. They pause for only a moment, 
the ponies pushing their noses deep under the 
water, and then, at a signal yell they come 
rushing out of the pond, through the rice, 
through the tall prairie grass, and vanish like 
dusky spectres over the next divide. They 
come and gono more. The prairie grass has 
turned into a wheat field, and the prairie pond 
is the watering-place for herds of cattle. 
Almost any little pond or basin of water 
adds to the interest of the landscape, however 
humble or even mean it may be intrinsically. 
It is always a bright surface and can reflect 
