Hewn from the cypress-tree, and carefully fitted to

gether.

Large and low was the roof; and on slender columns

supported,

Rose-wreathed, vine-encircled, a broad and spacious veranda,

Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, extended around it.

At each end of the house, amid the flowers of the

garden,

Stationed the dove-cots were, as love's perpetual symbol, Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of rivals.

Silence reigned o'er the place. The line of shadow and sunshine

Ran near the tops of the trees; but the house itself was in shadow,

And from its chimney-top, ascending and slowly expanding

Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke rose. In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a

pathway

Through the great groves of oak to the skirts of the limitless prairie,

Into whose sea of flowers the sun was slowly descending. Full in his track of light, like ships with shadowy canvas Langing loose from their spars in a motionless calm in the tropics,

Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of grapevines.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

WE

Texas, the Plains.

KIT CARSON'S RIDE.

E lay low in the grass on the broad plain levels, Old Revels and I, and my stolen brown bride; And the heavens of blue and the harvest of brown And beautiful clover were welded as one,

To the right and the left, in the light of the sun.
Forty full miles if a foot to ride,

66

Forty full miles if a foot, and the devils
Of red Camanches are hot on the track
When once they strike it. Let the sun go down
Soon, very soon," muttered bearded old Revels

As he peered at the sun, lying low on his back,
Holding fast to his lasso. Then he jerked at his

steed

And he sprang to his feet, and glanced swiftly around, And then dropped, as if shot, with his ear to the ground;

Then again to his feet, and to me, to my bride,
While his eyes were like fire, his face like a shroud,
His form like a king, and his beard like a cloud,
And his voice loud and shrill, as if blown from a
reed,

"Pull, pull in your lassos, and bridle to steed,

And speed you if ever for life you would speed,
And ride for your lives, for your lives you must ride!
For the plain is aflame, the prairie on fire,

And feet of wild horses hard flying before
I hear like a sea breaking high on the shore,
While the buffalo come like a surge of the sea,
Driven far by the flame, driving fast on us three
As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in his ire."

We drew in the lassos, seized saddle and rein, Threw them on, sinched them on, sinched them over

again,

And again drew the girth, cast aside the macheers,
Cut away tapidaros, loosed the sash from its fold,
Cast aside the catenas red-spangled with gold,
And gold-mounted Colt's, the companions of years,
Cast the silken serapes to the wind in a breath,
And so bared to the skin sprang all haste to the
horse,

As bare as when born, as when new from the hand
Of God, without word, or one word of command.
Turned head to the Brazos in a red race with death,
Turned head to the Brazos with a breath in the hair
Blowing hot from a king leaving death in his course;
Turned head to the Brazos with a sound in the air
Like the rush of an army, and a flash in the eye
Of a red wall of fire reaching up to the sky,
Stretching fierce in pursuit of a black rolling sea
Rushing fast upon us, as the wind sweeping free
And afar from the desert blew hollow and hoarse.

Not a word, not a wail from a lip was let fall, Not a kiss from my bride, not a look nor low call Of love-note or courage; but on o'er the plain

So steady and still, leaning low to the mane,

With the heel to the flank and the hand to the rein, Rode we on, rode we three, rode we nose and gray

nose,

Reaching long, breathing loud, as a creviced wind blows:

Yet we broke not a whisper, we breathed not a prayer, There was work to be done, there was death in the

air,

And the chance was as one to a thousand for all.

Gray nose to gray nose, and each steady mustang Stretched neck and stretched nerve till the arid earth

rang,

And the foam from the flank and the croup and the neck

Flew around like the spray on a storm-driven deck.
Twenty miles!... thirty miles!... a dim distant speck...
Then a long reaching line, and the Brazos in sight,
And I rose in my seat with a shout of delight,
I stood in my stirrup and looked to my right-
But Revels was gone; I glanced by my shoulder
And saw his horse stagger; I saw his head drooping
Hard down on his breast, and his naked breast stoop-

ing

Low down to the mane, as so swifter and bolder

Ran reaching out for us the red-footed fire.

To right and to left the black buffalo came,

A terrible surf on a red sea of flame

Rushing on in the rear, reaching high, reaching higher. And he rode neck to neck to a buffalo bull,

The monarch of millions, with shaggy mane full
Of smoke and of dust, and it shook with desire
Of battle, with rage and with bellowings loud
And unearthly, and up through its lowering cloud
Came the flash of his eyes like a half-hidden fire,
While his keen crooked horns, through the storm of his

mane,

Like black lances lifted and lifted again;

And I looked but this once, for the fire licked through, And he fell and was lost, as we rode two and two.

I looked to my left then, and nose, neck, and shoulder

Sank slowly, sank surely, till back to my thighs;
And up through the black blowing veil of her hair
Did beam full in mine her two marvellous eyes,
With a longing and love, yet a look of despair
And of pity for me, as she felt the smoke fold her,
And flames reaching far for her glorious hair.
Her sinking steed faltered, his eager ears fell
To and fro and unsteady, and all the neck's swell
Did subside and recede, and the nerves fall as dead.
Then she saw sturdy Pachè still lorded his head,
With a look of delight; for nor courage nor bribe,
Nor naught but my bride, could have brought him to

me.

For he was her father's, and at South Santafee

Had once won a whole herd, sweeping everything down

In a race where the world came to run for the crown. And so when I won the true heart of my bride,