Winning the Wilderness

therward. Across the face of the prairie streamswandering through shallow clefts, aimlessly, somewhere toward thesoutheast; their course secured by gentle swells breaking into sheer lowbluffs on the side next to the water, or by groups of cottonwood trees andwild plum bushes along their right of way. And farther off the brownindefinite shadowings of half-tamed sand dunes. Aside from these things, afeatureless landscape--just grassy ground down here and bluecloud-splashed sky up there.The last Indian trail had disappeared. The hoofprints of cavalry horseshad faded away. The price had been paid for the prairie--the costlymeasure of death and daring. But the prairie itself, in its loneliness andloveliness, was still unsubdued. Through the fury of the winter'sblizzard, the glory of the springtime, the brown wastes of burningmidsummer, the long autumn, with its soft sweet air, its opal skies, andthe land a dream of splendor which the far mirage reflects and the widehorizon frames in a curtain of exquisite amethyst--through none of thesewas the prairie subdued. Only to the coming of that king whose scepter isthe hoe, did soul of the soil awake to life and promise. To him thewilderness gave up everything except its beauty and the sweep of thefreedom-breathing winds that still inspire it.