,
With its looplike bend below,
Seeming in the light of evening
Like a giant serpent there,
Which had coiled about its victim,
And lay resting in its lair.
Breaking through the tangled brushwood
As the night was coming on,
Creeping down the steep embankment
Where the muddy waters run,
Billy crossed within the timber
Where the shroud of deeper gloom,
And its chilling breath of darkness
Marked the hidden prairie tomb.

23

As the soul in deep communion,
Seeks some isolated bower
Where the body's sordid cravings
Yield beneath the spirit's power,
So the searcher, bowed in reverence,
Left untouched his evening fare
As he listened to the voices
Of the shadows gathering there.
Here no lighted torch or camp fire
With its weak and fitful ray,
Could illume the mystic journey
Of prayer's consecrated way.
Here the silence brought its message
Of forebodings, vague and deep,
In its visions to the dreamer,
Through the mystery of sleep.

24

In his dreams he saw a monarch
Decked in sumptuous array,
Seated on a throne of glory,
Bearing royal title, Day.
Then some mighty power transcendent,
Thrust him from his gorgeous throne,
Turning all the realm to darkness,
And the world was left alone.
As the shades of gloom were spreading,
By strange flashing threads of light
He beheld in dim-drawn outline,
On the background of the night,
Phantom horse and girlish rider,
Speeding on in reckless race,
Till she turned directly toward him
And he saw her fearless face.

25

Then, behold! the King returning
With a pageantry so bright,
That the shadow-clad usurpers
Fled in ignominious fright.
As he saw the hosts approaching
Through a cloud of battle smoke,
Charging wildly down upon him,
He, in sudden fear, awoke.
As he looked, the blackened heavens
Splashed with demon-tinted blood
From the hue of burning prairie
Throbbed above the fiery flood.
Leaping o'er the rounded bluff-tops,
Down the valley's long incline,
He could see the lurid column
Spread its blazing battle line.

26

Like a troop of charging horsemen
Sweeping on with maddened roar,
Mowing down the grass battalions,
Crackling flames swept all before.
Then the driftwood's rifted breastwork,
Left there by the waters high,
Flashed up in a hissing furnace,
As the red-armed fiends leaped by.
Clinging to the swaying saddle
And the plunging horse's mane,
Billy dashed through fa