In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
(No. 214.)
THE
FOREST MONSTER.
CHAPTER I.
THE MYSTERIOUS RESCUE.
The wind was howling over the prairie, with a sharp, penetrating power, while a few feathery flashes eddying through the air, showed that although it was the season of spring, yet in this elevated region of the Far West, there was scarcely the first premonition of its breath.
The night was closing in, and the vast peaks of the Black Hills, that had loomed up white and grand in the distance, were gradually fading from view until they merged into the thickly gathering gloom, while the blasts that whirled the snow in blinding drifts about their tops, came moaning and sweeping over the bleak prairie, as if searching for some one to inclose in its icy grasp, and to strangle out of life.
Now and then the desolate howl of the mountain wolf, came borne on the wind, adding to the gloomy desolation of the scene, while the dark, swarming multitude of buffaloes hurried over the frozen ground, as if fearful of being caught in the chilling blast. It was a bad night to be lost upon the prairie.
Is there no one abroad to-night?
From the grove of hardy cottonwood yonder, a starlike point of light suddenly flashes out upon the night. Surely that is the light of some hunter’s camp-fire.