y into an open plain covered with a carpet of
grass and myriads of wild flowers, his eye brightens, and he recovers
his cheerfulness and strength. He again feels that God is in the
prairie.

_Basil._ Remember the alligators, Austin!

_Brian._ And the howling wolves! What do you think of them?

_Hunter._ The Red Pipe-stone Quarry is between the Upper Mississippi
and the Upper Missouri. It is the place where the Indians of the
country procure the red stone with which they make all their pipes.
The place is considered by them to be sacred. They say that the Great
Spirit used to stand on the rock, and that the blood of the buffaloes
which he ate there ran into the rocks below, and turned them red.

_Austin._ That is the place I want to see.

_Hunter._ If you go there, you must take great care of yourself; for
the Sioux will be at your heels. As I said, they hold the place
sacred, and consider the approach of a white man a kind of
profanation. The place is visited by all the neighbouring tribes for
stone with which to make their pipes, whether they are at war or
peace; for the Great Spirit, say they, always watches over it, and the
war-club and scalping-knife are there harmless. There are hundreds of
old inscriptions on the face of the rocks; and the wildest traditions
are handed down, from father to son, respecting the place. Some of the
Sioux say, that the Great Spirit once sent his runners abroad, to call
together all the tribes that were at war, to the Red Pipe-stone
Quarry. As he stood on the top of the rocks, he took out a piece of
red stone, and made a large pipe; he smoked it over them, and told
them, that, though at war, they must always be at peace at that place,
for that it belonged to one as much as another, and that they must all
make their pipes of the stone. Having thus spoken, a thick cloud of
smoke from his great red pipe rolled over them, and in it he vanished
away. Just at the moment that he took the last whiff of his great,
long, red pipe, the rocks were wrapped in a blaze of fire, so that the
surface of them was melted. Two squaws, then, in a flash of fire, sunk
under the two medicine rocks, and no one can take away red stone from
the place without their leave. Where the gospel is unknown, there is
nothing too improbable to be received. The day will, no doubt,
arrive, when the wild traditions of Red Pipe-stone Quarry will be done
away, and the folly and wickedness of all such superstitions be
plain