"ROCK OF AGES cleft for me!" The words swept along on the air as though borne on wings. "Let me " A rushing of real wings from amongst the reeds along the river side drowned for a moment the melody. Again it came to us with fuller force: Let me hide myself in-in Thee!" "In Thee!" There seemed in those pleading words a deeper pathos than when I had heard them closed about by conventional walls. Here we were under the broad archway of the heavens, the grass stretching out around us for miles, like an ocean of emerald tints, and to our ears came the "winged words" of prayer. My companion turned towards me. "That's powerful sweet!" he said. "Yes, it finds response in all hearts," I replied. "Yes, I say, too, it kinder lifts me up." "I like it for its simplicity, and that it is a Christian prayer not bound by human creeds." "Well, you say all that different to me, but, I tell you, I feel it all the same. The man who rode beside me was about twenty-five years of age. His face was browned by the winds of the plains. His eyes were very bright. The large white hat was pushed up from his forehead, the breadth of which was one single span of beauty. I admired the roundness of his form and the breadth of his shoulders, clothed about as they were by that peculiar style of dress adopted by the handsome young cowboy of the period. I say handsome and young, because the natural love of color, and a certain artistic arrangement and attention to detail, seem to belong to those young fellows, from whom I have received so many courtesies-so much, in fact, that gives pleasurable zest to remembrance. I liked to look on my companion seated in his Mexican saddle, yet I liked best the ringing laugh that came sometimes from his handsome mouth, or better, perhaps, was the curving of his lips to a half smile, showing, as he did so, the glitter of well-shaped, white teeth. We were silent awhile after the hymn ceased coming to us; then I asked: VOL. VIIL-35 "Where did that hymn come from?" "Not from no spirit, you bet! It come from Rob Ridwell. He'd sing the shoes off 'n Pat-i. You've heard that I-talian woman, I suppose? Yes? Well, Rob and me heard her oncet in San Francisco. We were there along in the winter time, a year or so ago, when she was there. She sung everything around pretty nigh to pieces; but, I tell you, Rob just got even with her when we come away. He's made a good bit by it, too." "How has he benefited by it?" I asked, in surprise. 66 I "Oh! he's made himself a name. think that's the way the tender-foot language would give it;" and with that the merry laugh rang out clearly on the breeze. He's sung me to sleep many a time." "There it is again," I said, as another air came floating along with such indescribable sweetness as can only be felt in a lonely, wild place. "This 'll be one of his sweep-stake nights.” "Where?" I asked. "Down there at Bluff Point. We'll be there directly;" and as he spoke, a collection of shocks, in the midst of which extended a long log cabin, came to view. Many men moved here and there before us as we entered the narrow opening, which, like a street, ran lengthwise of the smaller huts arrayed on either side. The longer cabin, formed of logs in their rough state, stood back of these, and this was surrounded by smaller cabins or shocks ranged at the back. "This gentleman is a stranger," said my companion to an elderly man who approached. "Let me make you acquainted with Captain Tinner, but I be blest if I know your name, West, did you say? All right. Captain West, Captain Tinner." "I am pleased to meet you, Captain West." "I'm not a captain," I replied. "Well, it's all one. You're a stranger anyways, and you've got a hearty welcome." "Here, boys!" In response a half dozen young men approached, wearing large hats, long boots, broad belts bound about their My neighbor remarked: "Jimmy was an out an' out tender-foot till he got broke in. He kicked a good bit, but we drawed him in, and now he's as good as you'll find.” waists, each having for adornment whatever suited best the particular taste of the wearer. "Boys," continued Captain Tinner, this here gentleman is a stranger, and you jest do his wishin' for 'im. I don't want no hack work. I trust 'im to you.' "Ef you'd like to wash," said a delicate looking boy, "come this way." I entered the shock near by, and was left alone. The room contained a cot bed which was clean; a tin basin upon a box in the corner, a bucket of water and a dipper. The hard earth floor had no covering, but the small window was tastefully draped with newspapers in imitation of a lambrequin. After refreshing myself with a wash, and a rub of the dark crash towel, I stepped out and joined "the boys" once again. This was my first trip to the prairie-lands, and I enjoyed the newness" of old Nature as only a townbred man may. "Take a seat, stranger, said a young man rising from a log near by. I seated myself beside him. He was small of stature, though well built. His features were regular and handsome. Dark eyes, dark hair and a dark complexion gave him a noticeably foreign look. Are you an American?" I asked. "Oh, yes," he replied gravely, for he never heat the ambient airs with his laughter as did most of his companions. 'Yes, I am an American. My father was an officer of the United States Navy. He's dead now. I've got Spanish blood. My grand-mother was a Spanish lady. I came out here just to try it, as so many do. We read of cowboy life and came out to try it. My people in the East are always writing to me to come back. Some day I will go." 66 "Here, Jimmy!" called my companion of the afternoon and evening, with whom I had crossed the prairie. Jim my, bring the captain to supper." Entering the long log cabin we seated ourselves at a rough table extending the length of the room. Although the manner of arranging the table and serving the meal was novel to me, I was hungry and the food and dishes looked clean. Butter knives were not used, but I being a stranger was helped first. My traveling companion sat beside me. Jimmy sat facing me. "There's some things he aint come to yet," remarked Captain Tinner; "he aint stuck on your cookin'." "No!" shouted my happy-hearted companion. "He's too partickeler. He wants the dishes washed twicet-a-day." Jimmy quietly remarked to me, after wards, in his grave manner, that when his friend cooked he always turned his back towards him and looked out of the window. When we had finished our supper and discussed awhile the best traits of the cowboy and his steed, we crossed the plain about one hundred rods from that point to a tent which was surmounted by a flag. The seats, which were arranged for about fifty people, were of boards which were supported by rough stones, or else they were formed of logs covered with the natural bark. The stage consisted of a broad wagon, turned bottom upwards. The seats were soon filled by the people living within a range of ten miles around the camp, the boys sitting along on the ground, there being a narrow aisle on either side the tent. When the singer made his appearance through a small opening near the stage, the uproar in the way of applause was deafening. "Hurrah for Ridwell!" 'Rob's the man to sing Pat-i hollow!" "Three cheers for our pry-medoner!" and other appeals to the vanity of their hero rent the air. He stood smiling and nodding in a cheerful way, until silence prevailed. Stepping to the centre of the stage he began in a minor key the national hymn of Italy. Gradually his voice, as though responsive to the promptings of his spirit, rose, bearing the melody upwards with that spiritu alistic fervor which takes its tone from the motherhood of Genius. The wild life of the prairie seemed for the time closed about by the atmosphere of some hallowed region, so rapt seemed the singer in the power of song, so silently uplifted were the hearts of his listeners. The faces of the audience were indicative of the passions aroused or soothed, according to the nature that received the impression; yet to all, the melody had brought something tender, something good: Peace, Regret, or Tears. He ceased. The silence was for one moment unbroken; then, as though by one impulse, the little crowd arose to its feet shouting its fullest approbation. The delicate boy who had invited me to "wash" on my arrival, stepped forth with a large bunch of wild flowers, interspersed with the shining leaves of water plants and the crisp curled buffalo grass. He placed it before the feet of the singer with that half timid, reverential air that a boy shows when making an offering to the hero of his choice. Dropping upon one knee, Rob Ridwell took up the bouquet with a smile and pleasant bow, and with such grace of action and manner as would have done justice to a "child of song" trained in the way of worldly training. Song followed song-some of them being those best known to the audience, others of a more cultivated style, which had struck his fancy whilst attending the operatic or theatrical performances in San Francisco, Denver, or Cheyenne. They were all "shows," it mattered not who stood as a star before the footlights. The whirligig on the stage, deluding with its tinsel and gauze, is a "show;" the minstrel troupe, be they ringers or singers, are combined into a "show;" and the opera, with its volume of song outpoured for the world before it, that listens and waits to applaud and caress with its praise (if the singers be successful), is to the cowboy only a "show." Rob Ridwell sang as I have heard few untutored men sing, and the glory of that melody comes to me often amid the changeful scenes of my life. Though of a much more material character in its way, the presentations made after the concluding song, showed me the generosity of the honest fellows amongst whom I had fallen by chance. Purses holding from $2 to $10 were emptied into a gay silk kerchief, which my riding companion took from his neck. Ungrudgingly given and uncounted, the pile was handed to Rob with the simple injunction of: "Here, ole fellow, take what you have earned;" and he, with a pleasant laugh, merely took it, and that was all. 66 Hamish West. THE LEGEND OF DEAD MAN'S LAKE.* EVER the, VER a gray haze waketh the morn, And the noons they follow the desolate noons, "Tis a world of forest all withered and bleak, But a gray mist broods over water and woods, And never a sound in all the world round, But the desolate call of a crow. *Dead Man's Lake, a lonely sheet of water that lies in a desolate region of the Indian Peninsula, between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. It is situated in a forest of dead pines and hemlocks, blighted by bush fires long before the memory of any living man, and this adds materially to the desolation of an already dreary region of swamp and rock. The Indians have a legend that a chief was treacherously murdered on this lake, and that his body still lies with upturned face at the bottom. Hence its name and the dread curse they believe hangs over the vicinity, which they always shun. And there in a mist, by clammy winds kissed, All fringed in with weeds and dank marsh reeds The golden summers they go and they come; But never the golden summers that come, There is never a ray of the sun by day, But ever that horrible haze, That hangs like a shroud or the ghost of a cloud And ever the moon at her midnight noon, And ever, 'tis said, that she seeth a dread That floateth down there, with the weeds in its hair, Like the ghost of a hate, that lieth in wait, And ever at midnight, white and drear, And into the shade that the forest hath made, A wider circle they take; For they dread lest their tread wake the sleep of the dead In the bosom of Dead Man's Lake. And as long as it lies with that prayer in its eyes, And that curse on its white sealed lips, Will the lake lie wan, and the years drift on, In their horrible, hushed eclipse, Will the lake lie under the strange mute wonder Will the song of bird there never be heard, But only the dread of the skies overhead, From the terrible spell that there ever will dwell And there it lies and holdeth the skies, In a trance they never can break, While the years, they follow the desolate years, William Wilfred Campbell. RAMBLES ABOUT NAPLES. BY GUY B. SEELY. HILE other Italian one warm summer morning, after sauncities may surpass tering through the pretty park of the Naples in the wealth "Villa Nazionale" at the city's western of their historic mon- end, and along the gentle ascent of the uments, or their treas- coast road, I accepted the pressing inures of art, she has a vitation of a cabman who had patiently peculiar attraction for followed me, and chartered him and his the traveler in being trap for the day, for a sum which, to the centre of a district combining a one of his calling in America, or to the splendor of natural scenery with points fellow himself, should he ever emiof profound antiquarian and geologic grate, would seem none too generous a interest. In every direction the tourist pourboire. The guide-books admonish finds an embarrassment of riches. To strangers in Italy to limit fees and paythe east and south is a region, in plain ments to the sums established by law, or view from the town and quickly and by custom, but to one from northern easily reached, which the archæologist, nations these often seem pitiably small. the geologist and the lover of nature The natives, however, do not always have found of inexhaustible interest; take this view, as in the case of one who but immediately to the west, as though accompanied me across the city and ento force upon the attention the more gaged a carriage for the two-mile trip renowned eastern outlook, the high pro- and back for the sum of fifty centesimi, montory of Posilippo limits the view. or ten cents. The regular fare would Running south from the city's southern have been but four cents more. It does water-front, it forms a fine background one good to read in the papers, as I did for the brilliant tones of the buildings lately, that the Naples hackmen had that cover the plateau at its foot. Here, struck for higher pay. embowered in dark-green foliage, are many villas and buildings of historic note, dotting the eastern face of the hill and commanding as from a grand stand the panorama of the bay with its glories of color and mountain form. It is from this hill that the more famous views of the city and bay have been taken; and here, The Posilippo road is bordered with the villas of the Neapolitans, and one may well be perplexed in the choice of location, whether to the left by the shores of that wonderfully translucent sea whose waves, of a luminous emerald hue in the shallows, bathe the very foundations of a villa and the walls of a garden |