The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1891-08-01
A Snapshot Photograph
of the Country
Between St. Paul and Helena.
Some Choice Descriptive Reading
of Scenes and Incidents of
a Long Ride.
Flying Over the Plains OF Dakota Into
Montana Over the Great North
ern Pacific.
A VIVID SKETCH or THE BAD
LANDS.
A Guest at Last OF Hospitable Home
Near the Strange Bad City Of Helena.


Near the Strange Bad City Of Helena.
Special corr. of the NEW DOMINION:
HELENA, Montana, July PA
stranger in a strange town with six
hours on hands till the next train is
apt to feel that he has a big job
ahead, in the matter of killing that
amount of time rather than let it
kill him. The little check boy who
took charge of my parcels at the de-
pot helped me out of the dilemma by
saying: sometimes when folks are
waiting for their train they take the
electric car near here and ride to
Minneapolis then get transfer there
and take another electric car for
Minnehaha Falls. You get ride of
SO miles for 20 cents and see lots of
both cities" So said so done and
soon ! was bowling along at rapid
rate toward the flour city" St.
Paul is said to he IL miles from Min
neapolis, but in fact they are really
one, except in name as almost the en-
tire IL miles are built up, with pref
ty tasteful Gothic and Queen Anne
cottages, homes of the upper middle
classes evidently.
A couple of parks have been laid
out between, as breathing places for
the millions who will one day occu.
py this lovely region. After de-
lightful ride of Is miles | found N.Y.
self with a number of excursionists
at Minnehaha Park space of 100
acres set apart by the State and great
ly improved and beautified by the
city of Minneapolis for the perpetual
use of the public.
A delicious musical gurgle breaks
upon our ears and short walk over
closely clipped grass and under deep
cool recesses of shade brings us to
rustic bridge spanning a silvery
stream and few steps further on
and we face the Laughing Water"
immortalized by Longfelow in Hia-
watha though some contend that no
reference to this fall was intended.
No poets pen or painters brush
could add to it's beauty. The stream
was quite high from recent rains and
a cleaning sheet of snow white foam
came tumbling over the concave
precipice waving and tossing like
dainty diaphanous drapery of lace
woven in the loom of the fairies to
fall so feet to the bottom In a shower
of rainbow tinted spray.
When my prospective trip to Mon
tana was spoken of in Washington
City in the presence of the wife of
one of the officers of the U. S. Geo
detic Survey last spring she remark
ed with much enthusiasm: "Well!
If you go by way of the N. P. R. r.
you have delightful experience
ahead of you. The most charming
trip of my life was over that road
from Portland to St. Paul. Charming
not only on account of the perfect
equipment of the road and unrivalled
scenery along the route but because
of the politeness and untiring kind
ness of every one connected with it,"
1t is magnificent railway system
with 2055 miles of main stem and
its twenty odd branches containing
in all 416S miles of track. 1t taps
some of the finest scenery of the Uni
ted States. 1t starts out westward
and runs l6l miles through the love
ly timber and lake region of Mime
sofa; then we strike North Dakota
and were it not for the whirr of the
wheels one might imagine themselves
sailing over limitless ocean. The
boundless expanse of prairie stretch
es away, away far as eye can reach
till the pale green of the land melts,
and blends with the turquoise blue
of the sky with here and there the
ontline of a house cutting the dis
tant horizon like a solitary sail on a
boundless sea.
The land in the eastern and mid |
die parts of North Dakota is fiat as
a floor. There is not a hill-not even
an ant heap, there's not cree-not
so much as a saping knee high to a
colt to rest the eye upon except where
the N. P. company has planted pop
lars and willows for a snowhreak. |
Many thousands of these have died
and stand in scrried ranks pointing
their skeleton arms toward the pitt
less and rainless Heavens that denied
moisture to sustain their arboreal ex.
istence. The ground was starred |
over with flowers whose vivid color
ing would shame the gayest shades
on the artists palette
Among them the wild rose only
four inches in height but of dazzling
brilliancy, also the meadow lily but
with many additional shades of color
then there were acres of land that
seemed fairly afame with the vivid
blaze of a small variety of hollyhock,
not larger than dime and only
few inches high The asclepias which
grows white balls of composite flow
ers in Indiana and Virginia, here
throws out glowing masses of color
resembling balls of Greek fire. The
prickly pear cactus sends up hand
some flower very like a double yellow
rose. This region would delight the
heart of Oscar Wilde as there are
hundreds of acres, of wild sunflowers
looking like "a field of the cloth of
gold" wild mustard grows in equal