Year: 1867

Tired with our long tramp after game
for the day had been very warm-we
threw ourselves upon bare spot OF
ground on the prairie, where low ridge
gave shelter from the rays of the declin'
ing sun. Snakes were abundant herea
bouts, and therefore it was that we Sc.
lected clear space for our bivouac, lest
we might sit down upon n nest of them
unawares.


GLOW bleak and dismal country
looks without trees" exclaimed one OF
the party. Gwen one solitary tree
would be comfort now. Think how
cozily we could stretch ourselves and
smoke our pipes under the shade of q
spreading oakW


81 used to think good deal of trees, y
dryly remarked Major Holster-a man
who had travelled over most countries
of the world. 81 used to love trees, in
fact" continued he; "but somehow lost
confidence in them long ago. It's very
pleasant to lie under tree when you
know what's in it; but suppose you
don't" .'..


There was Il vague mystery, if not hor-
ror, in the suggestion thrown out by
the major, and the rest of the party,
with one voice, called upon him to ex-
plain. 49,.


"Well," began he, "T never was abso-
lutely treed but once in my life, and
here's the way it happened: I had fix
ed myself up for hunting among the
high ridges in the central country of
South America, and there l lived in clo-
yer, tell you, for many weeks, game of
all Sorts being plenty, and the climate,
most of the time, very salubrious and
pleasant One day, tired of the sport l
had long been enjoying on the high
grounds, l made myself up for q day
after the wild ducks, which were very
numerous among the dykes and ponds
Of large tract Of meadow land that lay
Just below where l had built my shantY.
1t was early in the morning when /
started on my hunt, alone, and all went
very smoothly with me till near noon,
my chief difficulty being to carry the
ducks, with which my game bag was
soon so stuffed that / was obliged to
string the next comers from my button
holes, and even about my neck. must
have locker much like one OF those itin-
Grant poulterers one sometimes meets
with in the cities.


"In the latitudes to which refer,
thunder storms are sudden and violent.
The air is perfectly clear and pleasant,
and the sky of an intense blue, when,
all at. once, you will see q, small black
cloud rising up to the westward, maybe,
and, before you have time to say "thun-
der" the dusky yapor goes surging and
spirting out on every side, until dark
ness overspreads everything, and then
the lightning seems to fan your cheek
with its flashing pinions; the thunder
smashes and crashes close above and
around you, and the rain comes do wn,
not in drops, as we arc accustomed to
see it in this feeble and uninteresting
climate, but in great cylinders, as if the
bottoms had come out of the watering
pots overhead, and the article was COM
ing down with n looseness. Well, this
was what happened in q jiffy, so to
speak, just as was preparing to eat a
bit of lunch l had brought with me.
There was no use in my turning TO run
for home. The thing was so sudden
that, on looking toward the ridge, l
could see the streams that had lately
been mere threads raging and tumbling
down among the rocks in cascades, car
rying stones and trees and great masses
Of earth along with them. The high
grounds were at Hleast mile away,
and yet I made instinctively toward
them, but had not gone o hundred
yards when / was aware of water plash-
ing beneath my feet in q way which it
had not FLASHED during the mornings
tramp. immediately it was up to my
ankles, and i hardly had made up nv
mind as to what had best do when /
found the ripples of it pouring over the
tops of my boots. The whole meadow
was one great lake in less than O. quar-
ter of an hour, with the tops of the
tallest reeds fast disappearing beneath
the domineering element. Cropping
proudly out of the water, at about one
hundred yards from where stood, /
could just distinguish o solitary tree.
the only one 20 be seen for miles around.
For this | made, and the water was