es, with a sort of fiery splendor. The perfect days
of America are here.

Master Mann and Benjamin started on their expedition with a few Indians,
who were to see them to the Jefferson River and there leave them.

The Yankee schoolmaster had a prophetic soul, and he felt that he was
treading the territory of future empires.

Launched on the Missouri, the thought of what the vast plains might become
overwhelmed him at times, and he would lie silent in his boat, and pray
and dream.

The soul of the Indian boy seemed as bright as the golden air of the
cloudless days, during most of the time on the Salmon River, and while
passing through the mountains. But he would sometimes start up suddenly,
and a shade would settle on his face.

Master Mann noticed these sudden changes of mood, and he once said to him:

"What makes you turn sad, Benjamin?"

"Potlatch."

"But that is a dance."

"Hawks."

"I think not, Benjamin!"

"You do not know. They have a bitter heart. My father does not sleep. It
is you that keeps him awake. He loves you; you love me and treat me well;
he loves you, and want to treat you well--see. _She_ make trouble. Indians
meet at night--talk bitter. They own the land. They have rights. They
threaten. Father no sleep. Sorry."

_THE FALLS OF THE MISSOURI._

The Falls of the Missouri are not only wonderful and beautiful, but they
abound with grand traditions. Before we follow our young explorer to the
place, let us give you, good reader, some views of this part of Montana as
it was and as it now appears.

We recently looked out on the island that once lifted the great black
eagle's nest over the plunging torrent of water--the nest famous,
doubtless, among the Indians, long before the days of Lewis and Clarke.

We were shown, in the city of Great Falls, a mounted eagle, which, it was
claimed, came from this nest amid the mists and rainbows. The fall near
this island, in the surges, is now known as the Black Eagle's Fall.

This waterfall has not the beauty or the grandeur of the other
cataracts--the Rainbow Falls and the Great Falls--a few miles distant. But
it gathers the spell of poetic tradition about it, and strongly appeals to
the sense of the artist and the poet. The romancer would choose it for his
work, as the black eagles chose it for their home.

Near it is one of the most lovely fountains in the world, called the Giant
Spring.

"Close beside the great Missouri,
Ere it ta