he was carried to them, he opened wide his big blue eyes and gave vent to his feelings in a long "Oo-0-0-0!" through his puckered red lips. Queen was still nursing her sorrow for Spot wher little Don, with his blue eyes, red lips, and dimpled

DON AND QUEEN PLAYING WITH THE BUILDING-BLOCKS.

cheeks, was held up before her and laughed his way straight into her affection. Spot alive or not, Queen, in common with everybody else in the big tents, had to do homage to innocence and joy, and so she straightway declared her love by a tremendous rumble and sway, which so delighted Don that he replied with a cooing "Oo-0-0-0 !"

that sealed the compact. From that time forward Don and Queen were devoted to each other.

W

Many parents would have been afraid to trust their little child with Queen, knowing how she hated the men about her; but Don's papa and mamma were circus people, familiar with elephant ways, and they knew that Queen would far rather injure herself than allow the least harm to come to Don. No doubt Queen considered Don as a new species of being, entirely different from the mankind she hated so bitterly.

Every day, at least once, must Don be taken to Queen; and long before the baby boy could walk, he crawled about under the gigantic creature or rode on her back, with as much fearlessness as if she were made of wood. The first time he ever stood on his feet by himself was one day when he was playing about Queen. He caught hold of one of the huge legs, which he could not half encircle, and strained and tugged until he had gained his feet.

His triumphant "Oo-oo-o!" was responded to by a prolonged rumble from Queen, who seemed quite as proud of Don's achievement as were the spectators. Nor could his own mother have been more tender of him. You might have tortured Queen, but she would not have moved a hair's-breadth carelessly when Don was playing about her feet. By and by Don grew older and could walk, and then what games they used to have together! Everybody in the show would gather around to see the two strange playfellows. When he could just toddle, Don would run up to Queen with a chuckle of delight, and putting his white, plump little arms around her great brown hairy trunk,

[SEE NEXT PAGE.]

would tug away with all his little strength, as if he believed he could pull that living mountain over.

And, strange to say, he actually accomplished his object, for Queen humored the little fellow's fancy. Swaying and rumbling with delight, she would gradually allow herself to come to her knees, and finally to fall over on her side. And it was touching to see how all the time she kept her eyes lovingly on the beautiful baby, taking care that no movement of hers should even disturb him!

When she was at last prostrate, Don would look around as if to say, "See what I can do!" Then he would imitate what he had seen the trainer perform. He would clamber and climb until he was on Queen's head, and there he would sit, with the air

THE TWO FRIENDS.

of a conqueror. He was quite likely to thrust his little fist into the elephant's eye or to swing his foot into her mouth, but not a motion would the patient creature make while he sat there, for she seemed to know that he was not very secure in his high perch.

Sometimes Don would carry his picture-blocks to Queen, and together they would build houses. Don would put on one block, and then Queen would take

one up in her trunk and put it in its place as carefully as if she had been used to the game all her life; and when Don would kick the house down, as he usually did when it was about half built, his merry laugh and her thunder-like rumble were something worth going miles to hear.

It never seemed to occur to Don that there was anything odd in his companionship with the gigantic creature; and had it entered his little head to do so, there is no doubt that he would have proposed a walk in the fields with her, with as much innocence as if she had been a small dog.

All this while there was no better-tempered elephant in the menagerie than Queen, who seemed to feel bound to act gently toward everybody in order to prove her right to the friendship of little Don. But one day a change came. A cloud fell upon the great show. Diphtheria, a cruel disease, took away the little baby boy. Sunshine gave place to gloom. The lightest-hearted, the most careless, the most reckless, mourned.

The sorrowful tidings found their way into the elephants' tent,-who can tell how! Nobody could doubt then the love that went out for little Don from the uncouth giants chained to the earth. They could not speak, they could not weep like their human masters; but their grief must find expression, and they acted as if crazed.

And Queen! She could not or would not realize that the men about her had had no part in her bereavement. She was filled with fury. Her other losses she could forgive, but never this one. Everything was done to pacify her, to subdue her, but in vain. They might kill her, quell her they could not. The other elephants after a week of grief resumed their accustomed duties, but Queen was immovable and even dangerous, and, therefore, she was sent from the Far West to Bridgeport in Connecticut, where the winter quarters of the elephants are.

For six months Queen remained in this condition of furious grief. Never before or since has there been such an instance among elephants of persistent affection. Queen has little "Bridgeport " now, and if one can judge by appearances, she is perfectly satisfied with him, for if ever mother doted on baby, she dotes on him; and though, no doubt, she has reserved one corner of her heart to the memory of Don, she has too much happiness to feel much sorrow.

ONLY sixteeen or seventeen miles a day. A long, creeping, creaking line of covered white oxwagons, stretching away to the west across the vast and boundless brown plains. Not a house for thousands of miles, not a tree, not a shrub, not a single thing in sight, except now and then, dotted down here and there, a few great black spots in the boundless sea of brown.

That is the way it was when my parents took me, then only a lad, across the plains, more than thirty years ago. How different now, with the engines tearing, smoking, screeching and screaming across at the rate of five hundred miles or more a day!

There are many houses on the plains now. The pioneers have planted great forests of trees, and there are also vast corn-fields, and the song of happy harvesters is heard there. But the great black spots that dotted the boundless sea of brown are gone forever. Those dark spots were herds of countless bison, or buffalo as they were more generally called.

One sultry morning in July, as the sun rose up and blazed with uncommon ardor, a herd of buffalo was seen grazing quietly close to our train, and some of the younger boys who had guns and pistols, and were "dying to kill a buffalo," begged their parents to let them ride out and take a shot. As it was only a natural desire, and seemed a simple thing to do, a small party of boys was soon ready. The men were obliged to stay with the train and drive the oxen; for the tents had already been struck, and the long white line had begun to creep slowly away over the level brown sea toward the next water, a little blind stream that stole through the willows fifteen miles away to the west.

There were in our train two sons of a rich and rather important man. And they were now first in the saddle and ready to take the lead. But as they were vain and selfish, and had always had a big opinion of themselves, their father knew they had not learned much about anything else. There was also in the train a sad-faced, silent boy, barefooted and all in rags; for his parents had died with the cholera the day after we crossed the Missouri river, and he was left helpless and alone. He hardly ever spoke to any one. And as for the rich man's boys, they would sooner have thought of speaking to their negro cook than to him. As the boys sat on their horses ready to go, VOL. XI.-60.

and the train of wagons rolled away, the rich man came up to the barefooted boy, and said:

"See here, "Tatters," go along with my boys and bring back the game."

"But I have no horse, sir," replied the sad-faced boy.

"Well, take mine," said the anxious father; "I will get in the wagon and ride there till you come back."

"But I have no gun, no pistols nor knife," added the boy.

"Here!" cried the rich man. "Jump on my horse Ginger,' and I'll fit you out.”

When the barefooted boy had mounted the horse, the man buckled his own belt about the lad and swung his rifle over the saddle-bow.

How the boy's face lit up! His young heart was beating like a drum with delight as the party bounded away after the buffalo.

The wagons creaked and crawled away to the west over the great grassy plains; the herd of buffalo sniffed the young hunters, and lifting their shaggy heads, shook them angrily, and then turned away like a dark retreating tide of the sea, with the boys bounding after them in hot pursuit.

"Tatters"

It was a long and exciting chase. soon passed the other boys, and pressing hard on the herd, after nearly an hour of wild and splendid riding, threw himself from the saddle and, taking aim, fired.

The brothers came up soon, and dismounting as fast as their less practiced limbs would let them, also fired at the retreating herd.

66

When the dust and smoke cleared away, a fine fat buffalo lay rolling in the grass before them. Following the example of “ Tatters,” they loaded their guns where they stood, as all cautious hunters do, and then went up to the game.

The barefooted boy at once laid his finger on a bullet hole near the region of the heart and looked up at the others.

"I aimed about there!" shouted one. "And so did I!" cried the other eagerly.

Without saying a word, but with a very significant look, the barefooted boy took out his knife, and, unobserved, pricked two holes with the point of it close by the bullet hole. Then he put his finger there and again looked up at the boys. They came down on their knees, wild with delight, in an instant.

They had really helped kill a buffalo! In fact,

"We must ride with the sun on the left shoulder, as I said, and with our faces all the time to the west. If we do not do that, we shall die. Now, come with me," said "Tatters" firmly, as he turned his horse and took the lead. And now meekly and patiently the others followed.

But the horses were broken in strength and spirit. The sun in mid-heaven poured its full force of heat upon the heads of the thirsty hunters, and they could hardly keep their seats in the hot saddles. The horses began to stumble and stagger as they walked.

And yet there was no sight or sound of anything at all, before, behind, or left or right. Nothing but the weary, dreary, eternal and unbroken sea of brown.

Away to the west, the bright blue sky shut down sharp and tight upon the brown and blazing plain. The tops of the long untrodden grass gleamed and shimmered with the heat. Yet not a sign of water could be anywhere discerned. Silence, vastness, voiceless as when the world came newly from the hand of God.

No one spoke. Steadily and quietly the young leader of the party led on. Now and then he would lift his eyes under his hat to the blazing sun over his left shoulder, and that was all.

There comes a time to us all, I believe, sooner or later, on the plains, in the valley, or on the

to come out from the brown grass beneath them as they struggled on.

Then suddenly they came through and out of the tall brown grass into an open plain that looked like a plowed field. Only, all about the outer edge of the field were little hills or forts as high as a man's knee. On every one of these little forts stood a soldier-sentinel, high on his hind legs and barking with all his might.

The lost hunters had found a dog-town, the first they had ever seen.

Some owls flew lazily over the strange little city, close to the ground; and as they rode through the town, a rattlesnake now and then glided into the hole on the top of one of the ten thousand little forts. The prairie dogs, also, as the boys rode close upon them, would twinkle their heels in the air and disappear, head first, only to jump up, like a Jackin-a-box, in another fort, almost instantly.

The party rode through the town and looked beyond. Nothing! Behind? Nothing! To the right? Nothing! To the left? Nothing; nothing but the great blue sky shut tight down against the boundless level sea of brown!

"Water," gasped one of the boys; "I am dying for water."

66 Tatters" looked him in the face and saw that what he said was true. He reflected a moment, and then said, "Wait here for me." Then, leaving the others, he rode slowly and quietly around the

mountain, in the palace or cottage, when we too can only lift our eyes, silent and helpless, to something shining in heaven.