They are in peaceful possession of the solitude. Five years ago buffaloes were roaming here. We see their bones bleaching in the sun. Here the Sioux and Chippewas hunted them down. Here the old bulls fought out their battles, and the countless herds cropped the succulent grasses and drank the clear running water of the stream which bears their name. They are gone forever. The ox and cow of the farm are coming to take their place. Sheep and horses will soon fatten on the rich pasturage of these hills. We of the East would hardly call them hills, much less mountains, the slopes are so gentle and the altitudes so low. The highest grade of a railroad would not exceed thirty feet to the mile in crossing them.
Here we find granite and limestone bowlders, and in some places beds of gravel, brought, so the geologists inform us, from the far North and deposited here when the primeval ocean currents set southward over this then submerged region. They are in the right place for the railroad. The stone will be needed for abutments to bridges, and the gravel will be wanted for ballast,—provided the road is located in this vicinity.
On our second day's march we come to what might with propriety be called the park region of Minnesota. It lies amid the high lands of the divide. It is more beautiful even than the country around White Bear Lake and in the vicinity of Glenwood. Throughout the day we behold such rural scenery as can only be found amid the most lovely spots in England.
Think of rounded hills, with green slopes,—of parks and countless lakes,—skirted by forests, fringed with rushes, perfumed by tiger-lilies—the waves rippling on gravelled beaches; wild geese, ducks, loons, pelicans, and innumerable water-fowl building their nests amid the reeds and rushes,—think of lawns blooming with flowers, elk and deer browsing in the verdant meadows. This is their haunt. We see their tracks along the sandy shores, but they keep beyond the range of our rifles.
So wonderfully has nature adorned this section, that it seems as if we were riding through a country that has been long under cultivation, and that behind yonder hillock we shall find an old castle, a mansion, or, at least, a farm-house, as we find them in Great Britain.
I do not forget that I am seeing Minnesota at its best season, that it is midsummer, that the winters are as long as in New England; but I can say without reservation, that nowhere in the wide world—not even in old England, the most finished of all lands; not in la belle France, or sunny Italy, or in the valley of the Ganges or the Yangtse, or on the slopes of the Sierra Nevadas—have I beheld anything approaching this in natural beauty.
How it would look in winter I cannot say, but the members of our party are unanimous in their praises of this portion of Minnesota. The nearest pioneer is forty miles distant; but land so inviting will soon be taken up by settlers.
It was a pleasure, after three days' travel over the trackless wild, to come suddenly and unexpectedly upon a hay-field. There were the swaths newly mown. There was no farm-house in sight, no fenced area or upturned furrow, but the hay-makers had been there. We were approaching civilization once more. Ascending a hill, we came in sight of a settler, a pioneer who is always on the move; who, when a neighbor comes within six or eight miles of him, abandons his home and moves on to some spot where he can have more elbow-room,—to a region not so thickly peopled.
He informed us that we should find the old trail we were searching for about a mile ahead. He had long matted hair, beard hanging upon his breast, a wrinkled countenance, wore a slouched felt hat, an old checked-cotton shirt, and pantaloons so patched and darned, so variegated in color, that it would require much study to determine what was original texture and what patch and darn. He came from Ohio in his youth, and has always been a skirmisher on the advancing line of civilization,—a few miles ahead of the main body. He was thinking now of going into the "bush," as he phrased it.