remaining to give ocular demonstration of these facts?" I asked.

"A few," said he. "Nothing very satisfactory, but what there is, you shall see."

So saying, he let himself down to the same spot where I had, in hiding from him, I following. On removing a few pieces of loose rock the door leading to a cavern was visible, which we entered. It was a large cave running back into a lofty arched room, as far as I could see in the surrounding gloom. The old man took a couple of torches from a pile that lay on a shelving rock close by the door, lighted them, and giving one to me bade me follow. The farther we went the wider and loftier was the cave, until I began to wonder where it would end. At this moment he paused before a stone tablet of immense proportions, raised about three feet from the floor, the ends resting on blocks of granite. All over its surface was hieroglyphics engraved in characters I had never seen before, though I have often found similar ones since.

"Here," said he, "are recorded the heroic deeds of our race while fighting to save our firesides from a rapacious foe. Every character is a history in itself. Yet your race know it not; but still boast of sciences you do not possess."

"No," said I, "we cannot decypher these characters, we have never claimed to have done so; but if you can give me a key to them, tell me how we may make an alphabet to it, we may still be able to do so."

"It would be useless for me to do so," said he, with his old manner of superiority, "your intellect could not grasp it; you would not understand me."

"Try me," said I, eagerly, "try me and see."

But he only beckoned me away, then advancing a few paces took from a recess in the rock, a heavy flagon not unlike our own in shape, and placing it in my hand, informed me that their vessels for drinking were like that, varied in shape and size according to taste. Holding it to the light, I was astonished to find it was made of gold, fine and pure as any I had ever seen. There were instruments of silver, also, which he assured me, would carry sound many miles, and others of glass and silver to shorten objects to the sight at an equal distance. And these, said he, handing me some curious shaped vases are like the material of which we made many of our ornaments to our dwelling. They appeared to be made of glass, yet they were elastic. He said the material was imperishable. There were helmets, shields, curiously shaped weapons, chisels, and many things I knew not the use of, all made of copper, among the rest a shield precisely like the one you have, Anne."

"Did you bring nothing away? uncle," asked the children.

"No: when he had shown me all he desired me to see, he led me back to the mouth of the cave, and motioning me out, followed, closing the opening he had made and ascending to the table where we stood before.

"Then I begged the old man to tell me more of his race, to unfold the curtain that hung like a pall between them and us. He shook his head sadly, and standing with his face towards the south, communing with himself awhile, turned to me, and said: 'You believe in a God, good and evil, rewards and punishments?'"

I answered in the affirmative.

"Would you hesitate to break an oath taken in the name of the God in which you believe?" he asked.

"I would not dare to commit such a crime," I answered.

"Then, swear," said he, "that what I have told and shown you, you will never reveal to human being by word or sign."

"Oh, no, you cannot mean that; leave us some clue to your lost race," I entreated.

"Yes, swear," repeated he imperiously.

"No: oh! no, I cannot. Though for your sake," I said, "I will be silent any reasonable number of years you shall dictate to me."

He gazed sternly on me for a few moments, then said.

"Let it be so. When I have passed away you are absolved from your oath."

"You will teach me to read the recorded past," I said inquiringly, "and tell me of the arts now lost, at some future day!"

"It is too late, my days are spent, he said; then rousing himself, he exclaimed, in a voice that still rings in my ears: 'Son of a degenerate race, go over this whole continent and there trace the history of my people. Our monuments are there, and on them are chiseled our deeds, and though we moulder in the dust, they can never die; they are imperishable. Go where the summer never ends, where the trees blossom, still laden with fruit, and there we once were mighty as these forests, and numerous as the drops in this lake; there read of our glory—but not of our shame—that was never chiseled in our monumental pillars; it is here, (placing his hand on his heart) and with me must die. Go, (said he, waving with his hand towards the path that ascended the table) go, and leave the last of a mighty race, to die alone. It is not fitting you should be here: Go? I am called.'"

I obeyed him reluctantly, but I never saw him again.

Chapter Fourth.

Their journey continued. Finding a Prairie. Encamping for the Night. Singular incident. A Mirage on the Prairie. Alarm in the Camp. The Prairie discovered to be on fire. Flight to the Sand Hills. Their final escape. Search for water. Finding a stream. Encampment.

The next day the camp was struck and packed; the oxen, rested and invigorated by roving over and cropping the rich grasses that grew in luxuriance along the banks of the river by which they had encamped, moved with a brisk step along their shady track, while the voices of the drivers sounded musically, reverberating through the stillness of the forest. Towards noon they came to one of those singularly interesting geological features of the west, a Prairie. This was something entirely new to the younger children, who had never been far from the place where they were born, and it very naturally surprised them to see such a boundless extent of territory, without a house, barn, or fence of any kind—nothing but a waving mass of coarse rank grass.

"Oh! father," cried little Benny, as the vast prairie burst on his sight, "see what a great big farm somebody has got! But where does he live? I don't see any house."