Not that day, nor the next, nor yet the day that

succeeded,

Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest

or river,

Nor, after many days, had they found him; but vague and uncertain

Rumors alone were their guides through a wild and desolate country;

Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of

Adayes,

Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned from the garrulous landlord,

That on the day before, with horses and guides and companions,

Gabriel left the village, and took the road of the

prairies.

127

IV.

FAR in the West there lies a desert land, where the mountains

Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous summits.

Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the gorge, like a gateway,

Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emi

grant's wagon,

Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway

and Owyhee.

Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind

river Mountains,

Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the Nebraska ;

And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the Spanish sierras,

Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind of the desert,

Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to the ocean,

Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn vibrations.

Spreading between these streams are the wondrous, beautiful prairies,

Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sunshine,

Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple

amorphas.

Over them wander the buffalo herds, and the elk

and the roebuck;

Over them wander the wolves, and herds of rider

less horses;

Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are

weary with travel;

Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael's children,

Staining the desert with blood; and above their terrible war-trails

Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the

vulture,

Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in battle,

By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the

heavens.

Here and there rise smokes from the camps of

these savage marauders;

Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift-running rivers;

And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk

of the desert,

Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by the brook-side,

And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline

heaven,

Like the protecting hand of God inverted above them.

Into this wonderful land, at the base of the Ozark Mountains,

Gabriel far had entered, with hunters and trappers behind him.

Day after day, with their Indian guides, the maiden and Basil

Followed his flying steps, and thought each day to o'ertake him.

Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, the smoke of his camp-fire

Rise in the morning air from the distant plain; but at nightfall,

When they had reached the place, they found only embers and ashes.