And, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the bride

groom was coming."

"Farewell!" answered the maiden, and, smiling, with Basil descended

Down to the river's brink, where the boatmen already were waiting.

Thus beginning their journey with morning and sunshine and gladness,

Swiftly they followed the flight of him who was speeding before them,

Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the

desert.

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

ceeded,

Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest or

river;

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

Rumours 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.

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 emigrant's

wagon,

Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and

Owyhee.

Eastward, with devious course, among the Windriver 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 riderless

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 vul

ture,

Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in

battle,

By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the hea

vens.

Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these savage marauders;

Here and there rise groves from the margins of swiftrunning 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 hea

ven,

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.

And, though their hearts were sad at times and their bodies were weary,

Hope still guided them on, as the magic Fata Mor

gana

Shewed them her lakes of light, that retreated and vanished before them.

Once, as they sat by their evening fire, there silently entered

Into the little camp an Indian woman, whose fea

tures

Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience as great as her sorrow.

She was a Shawnee woman returning home to her

people,

From the far-off hunting-grounds of the cruel Camanches,

Where her Canadian husband, a Coureur-des-Bois, had been murdered.

Touched were their hearts at her story, and warmest and friendliest welcome

Gave they, with words of cheer, and she sat and feasted among them

On the buffalo-meat and the venison cooked on the

embers.

But when their meal was done, and Basil and all his

companions,

Worn with the long day's march and the chase of the deer and the bison,

Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where the quivering fire-light

Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms wrapped up in their blankets,

Then at the door of Evangeline's tent she sat and re

peated

Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm of her Indian accent,

All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, and pains, and reverses.

Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know that another

Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been disappointed.

Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman's compassion,

Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered was near her,

She in turn related her love and all its disas

ters.

Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she

had ended