The Press., 1883-11-22
Detroit Free Press.) NIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE.


 NIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE.
 If you stand here and peer through the darkness you can see it all. There is the wagon of a lone emigrant family, its cover weather-worn and rent to prove that the journey has been long and weary. Ten feet away are the embers of the fire on which the evening meal was cooked. Be- tween the wagon aud the fire is the aude b, d of robes and blankets on which moth- CT and children are sleeping. On the oth- CT side of the vehicle g. and the horses, muuching at the short, sweet grass or list ching to the far-of voice of the wolf.
 That is the back ground. In the fore ground a senti. ei sits with his back to the solitary cotton wood. At his right-hand 'ss prairie OCT witch night has spread her mantle. Forty feet away are wifi. and children trusting iu his vigilance. Over head gray-white clouds are driving across the starlight heavens, and the moan of the wind has an uneasy, nervous sound. Away out on the prairie the wolf gallops from knoll to knoll and snuffs the air, and tn, coyote gnaws at the beach d bones of the buffalo and utters his short, sharp cries of hunger.
 Is there danger? All day long as the tired horses pull d the wagon at slow pace, the emigrant has carefully scanned the circle about him, but without cause for uueasiness. He knows he is in the Indian country and for the last twenty-four hours his nerves have been braced 10 hear their dreaded war-whoop and to catch sight of band riding down upon him.
 It Is midnight as we find him. His ear has been as keen as fox's and his eye has not rested for moment. The stakes are human v,s-his life with the rest The odds are ten ten to one against him.
 The brook b ,bbled and the man slept. Aye the sentinel who had five lives in his k eplng slept and dreamed, and in his dreams wandered back to the old home and heard the old familiar sounds.
 "Sh! It was rustic in the grass Turn to the left little more. There it is Thirty feet from the sleeping man rat tlesnake rears its head above the grass aud looks around Its eyes gleam like stars. The neck swells, the tongue flashes in aud out, and it coils and uncoils itself as if in fierce combat. Now it is advancing-now 1t swerves to the right-now to the left now it halts and coils itstf to strike. It might creep up aud bury its fangs in the flesh of the sleeping man, and 1t will It creeps again. It gldes through the grass like gleam-now to the right-now to the left-now straight ahead.
 ''S-s-s-h !'
 The serpant halts. Twenty feet more and it could have struck the sleeper, but some nov ment of his has alarmed it, and it g ides away for fifty feet, as fast as a shadow travels.
 Now look beyond the snake ! Is it a secoud serpent worming its way over the ground to surround the sleeper with peril? Is it wolf or panther creeping forward to make victim |? Now you can see more clearly. There is the scaip-loek and feath- ers-the dark face-the gleaming eyes the shut te-th and bronzed throat of Blackfoot warrior. A courier from one branch of his tribe to another, he has dis covere d the encampment, circled around it twice, and is now creeping upon the man, who sleeps instead of watches.
 How softly he moves A panther steal ing upon listening doe would not exer- c1se more care. Almost inch by iuch, and yet he is slowly approaching. He was a hundred feet away. Now he is ninety hty-seventy- He can see a dark mass at the foot of the tree, and he knows that the sentinel must be asleep or he would not be in that position.
 See the rattlesnake It has faced about, If it was daylight you could see a fierce gleam in its eye-a tightening of the cords and muscl s-a fierce flash of the red tongue. Astraight line of sixty feet drawn from the Indian to the tree would pass forward again-not weed breaking-not -four-six See the snake It's head is thrown back-its eyts shoot sparks there goes the adly z-z-z-z-z of his rattle. The head of the Indian is not three f. ct away IS he hears the ominous sound H. draws back, but there is dart, a flash, and some thing strikes him full in the face, and is not shaken off until he springs to his feet with cry heard for half 8 mile around, and rushes away in the darkness
 What was it !? The sentinel is wide awake and upon his feet. Wife aud chii- dren have been startled from slumber to grow whitehead and tremble, Even the horses have raised their he ads aud are peering into the night. There was sin gle cry-the wild scream of a human be- i1g suddenly terrified
 Ut was nothing-nothing but the howl of wolf P whispers the sentinel, as he walks over to comfort wife and cuildren and by and by all is quiet and peaceful as before. The night grows apaoe-the stars fade-daylight breaks. As the sun mes up, the wagon moves on It's way, and the brook and the camp and the cottonwood are left behind.
 sYes, it was the howl of some wolf prowl- ing about" whispers the em,graut to him. self as he walks beside his wagon and cau- tlousiy scaus the prairie.
 Three hundred feet 70 the left is coiled a snake, which darts it's venomous4 tongue at the rolling wagon. Half mile b yond lies the dead body of the Blaokfoot-swol- len, distorted "a horrible sight under the light of the morning, sun. Overhead cir. cle three or four vultures of the prairie, and creeping through the grass come the lank, hungry wolves to the feast. The wife laughs, the children frolic, the husband regains his light heart. Night wrote the r cord of the serpents in the grass, and he will never read it.
 A YoUNa WIFE s GREATEST TRIAL.-The greatest trial of young wife's life is the birth 1 of a child which is usually attended witt