you, and the odour of pine-sap is heavy on the air; where the breeze from without penetrates only in softened and saddened murmurous tones, that, in rising and falling, seem to come from so far away, to linger so short a while near you, and to die so slowly away in the unexplored aisles of the forest.

On we used to ride silently over the thick carpet of pine-quills, smoking pipe after pipe whilst we chatted unrestrainedly, or travelled back lazily over the past and its scenes in thought. From time to time we would halt, till the waggon wheels were heard creaking in the distance, and then pass on again ahead of the men. Occasionally the scene changed for a stream-threaded valley, full of beaver-dams, near which a few ducks sailed idly, in security, to the intense excitement of the wise-looking retriever, "Shot," who would glance from them to us with unmistakable meaning. Here the pine yielded place to the aspen, and the chipmunk and squirrel were succeeded by gorgeous butterflies, and red-winged grasshoppers that sprang away with a noisy clapping of wings from every tuft of grass beneath our horses' hoofs. At night, round a blazing camp fire, Dick, old Brown, B., and I would sit talking through many a pleasant hour, till the flames waxed low and red, and the vociferous snoring of the teamster and his cub warned us to turn in. Brown then "got off" his last tale or joke, and with a hearty "good night" we sought our couches of springy pine-tops and buffalo robes, where we slept the calm sleep of a natural life. What silver-lit skies spread above us; what a marvellous blue their fathomless depths embosomed; and how exquisitely delicate was the tracery of pine-boughs betwixt us and the late-rising moon! "Good night, good night!" And with a lazy yawn "Shot" would coil himself up close to me, and make himself comfortable for the night also.

CHAPTER II. THE YELLOWSTONE PARK.[4]—II.

Quitting the geyser basins, we turned towards the Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone River. Since the new track thither was not yet (1882) finished, and it was impossible for anything on wheels to approach it, our waggon was despatched by another route, to await our arrival at the Mammoth Hot Springs, whilst we, accompanied by Dick, proceeded in light marching order.

"Deep i' the afternoon," we approached the Upper Falls. Through a gorge, redeemed only from utter desolation by patches of red and yellow moss, and a few shaggy pines, the broad river forced its way. Through whirlpools and narrow gates, formed by the jutting out of buttresses of rock, and by isolated crags in mid-stream, a succession of ledges led it on with gathering force. Its sunny ripples became wild and black, the veins of white that streaked them spreading fast until, in the last narrow bend through which it whirled, but for the green lights in one glassy wave, the rugged surface was a sheet of foam. Then came the grand plunge. Freed from restraint, the whole body of the stream overleapt the sheer precipice before it, and fell, draped in white, clinging lace. A hundred and thirty-five feet below, it was lost to view in clouds of mist, through which the transient gleams of water lightnings and of flashing rocks were visible occasionally. Anon it issued from this silver shroud, tranquil and temporarily tamed.

To describe the Yellowstone Cañon with any degree of justice is an almost hopeless task; nor do the following lines pretend to convey even a glimmer of its real magnificence.

Some of the most marvellous effects and harmonies in colour that the world can show are displayed here, and that too on a scale of such grandeur, and in a mood of such majestic calm, that it is difficult in their presence to shake off the paralysis of simple wonder—to grasp the scene, and coin it into words.

The rocks are of volcanic origin. Here their prevailing hue is that of old ivory, contrasted with warm tones of dead-leaf red, or purple masses of a hundred shades, and enriched by carmine and softest orange, till the cliffs glow like a sunset in that sunset home, the Sierra Nevada. Yonder russet and ruddy bronze kindle, and melt into buffs, cairngorms, and faded greens—all tints, in short, that autumn wears, mingled and scattered, intermixed and woven, like the wreckage of summer on a forest floor, are lavished here. Further still, a reach of pearly gray is shot with écru and crimson lake, faint veins of white, or scars of sullen black. This scenery endures for miles; and as if a tour de force in colour were not enough, equal variety in form is exhibited in conjunction with it. Everywhere the rocks have eroded into quaint shapes. Forests and turreted castles, spires and cathedral domes, towers, monuments, and minarets, forts, forms, and faces are interspersed amidst a wilderness of pinnacles, boulders, and bluffs that have no likeness in the works of art.

It is as though the earth had yawned asunder not long since, for pine-trees, with all the appearance of having been but lately separated, fringe the sharp edges of the cañon, and nod for old acquaintance' sake at one another, in measured unison with cadences of wind, that idly chase each other down its solitudes. Through dreamy distances of chequered light and tangled shadow, the glance travels under a sort of spell, and unconsciously the fancy grows that you are gazing through the aisles of a vast cathedral illuminated by myriad and wondrously stained windows—not a cathedral wrought by the hands of man, nor one whose stillness was ever broken by his feverish tread, but the ruins of a colossal judgment hall, or place of worship, created by some long-gone superhuman race, of whose existence we retain no record.

Great hawks and kingly eagles hang upon level pinions in mid-air deep in the abyss beneath, and scarcely seem of greater consequence than jays. Three thousand feet below rushes the dwarfed river that a short while ago was on a level with us; and it looks like a slender chain of jewels linked in silver; its boiling rapids, losing their thunder in a thousand echo-haunts, send only the drowsiest murmur upwards to join in the musical breathing of the pine woods.