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The noble animal still runs free in his native prairies, always alone and unapproachable. We often met with the mountain goat, an animal which participates both of the deer and the common goat, but whose flesh is far superior to either. It is gracefully shaped long-legged and very fleet.

The belts of woodland that traverse the lower prairies and border the rivers are peopled by innumerable swarms of wild bees, which make their hives in hollow trees and fill them with honey tolled from the rich flowers of the prairies. The bees, according to popular assertion, are migrating like the settlers, to the west.

"It's now ur never." "I'll be dogged ef it haint," said the Poet. Charlton looked out wistfully over the wide prairies. He might escape and lead a wild, free life with Gray, and then turn up in some new Territory under an assumed name and work out his destiny. But the thought of being a fugitive from justice was very shocking to him. "No! no! I can't. God bless you both. Good-by!"

They hinted to him that it was beneath the dignity of one so big and strong and handsome to take notice of the very small and humble people like Mr. Meadow Mouse and Mr. Toad and Mr. Meadow Lark and others of his subjects. "Gradually the little people of the Wide Prairies began to notice a change in Thunderfoot. He became proud and vain. He openly boasted of his strength and fine appearance.

The uniformly rich soil of the Illinois and Wisconsin prairies produced so close and tall a growth of grasses for fires that no tree could live on it. Had there been no fires, these fine prairies, so marked a feature of the country, would have been covered by the heaviest forests.

In the eagerness of escape, they had made no provision for their journey; days must elapse before they could reach their haven of safety, and mountains and prairies be traversed, wrapped in all the desolation of winter.

The day became dark and cloudy; and, as there was only a faint cart track across the prairies, the minister found, in the course of the afternoon, that he had lost his way.

I thought of it as we went through, or rather over, the prairies. But if there had been in those days an Ararat Central, with good "incline" and stationary engine, they need not have sent out dove or raven, but might have started for home as soon as the rails shone in the sun and they could get the Ark on wheels.

I was always a great admirer of Nature and things which remained as they were created, and to the extent of my observation, I thought this the most beautiful and perfect country I had seen between Vermont and the Mississippi River. The country was nearly level, the land rich, the prairies small with oak openings surrounding them, very little marsh land and streams of clear water.

It was sufficiently incrusted to bear a pedestrian, but the poor horses broke through the crust, and plunged and strained at every step. So lacerated were they by the ice that it was necessary to change the front every hundred yards, and put a different one in advance to break the way. The open prairies were swept by a piercing and biting wind from the northwest.