h I had learned to rely. East,
west, north, south,--all were alike, and the very doubt paralyzed the
faculty. The growing darkness of the sky, the _watery_ moaning of
the wind, betokened night and storm; but I pressed on, hap-hazard,
determined, at least, to reach one of the incipient villages on the
Bloomington road.

After an hour more, I found myself on the brink of another winding
hollow, threaded by a broad, shallow stream. On the opposite side, a
quarter of a mile above, stood a rough shanty, at the foot of the rise
which led to the prairie. After fording the stream, however, I found
that the trail I had followed continued forward in the same direction,
leaving this rude settlement on the left. On the opposite side of the
hollow, the prairie again stretched before me, dark and flat, and
destitute of any sign of habitation. I could scarcely distinguish the
trail any longer; in half an hour, I knew, I should be swallowed up in a
gulf of impenetrable darkness; and there was evidently no choice left
me but to return to the lonely shanty, and there seek shelter for the
night.

To be thwarted in one's plans, even by wind or weather, is always
vexatious; but in this case, the prospect of spending a night in such
a dismal corner of the world was especially disagreeable. I am--or at
least I consider myself--a thoroughly matter-of-fact man, and my first
thought, I am not ashamed to confess, was of oysters. Visions of a
favorite saloon, and many a pleasant supper with Dunham and Beeson, (my
partners,) all at once popped into my mind, as I turned back over the
brow of the hollow and urged Peck down its rough slope. "Well," thought
I, at last, "this will be one more story for our next meeting. Who knows
what originals I may not find, even in a solitary settler's shanty?"

I could discover no trail, and the darkness thickened rapidly while I
picked my way across dry gullies, formed by the drainage of the prairie
above, rotten tree-trunks, stumps, and spots of thicket. As I approached
the shanty, a faint gleam through one of its two small windows showed
that it was inhabited. In the rear, a space of a quarter of an acre,
inclosed by a huge worm-fence, was evidently the vegetable patch, at one
corner of which a small stable, roofed and buttressed with corn-fodder,
leaned against the hill. I drew rein in front of the building, and was
about to hail its inmates, when I observed the figure of a man issue
from the stable. Even in