Crossing the river by a rope ferry, they ascended the opposite bank, and drove rapidly onward till they stopped to visit Carver’s Cave.
There are several large rooms rounded in the white sand-stone, which crumbles at the touch. The floor was of pure white fine sand, powdered, while through the cave flowed a stream clear as crystal. Norman stooped and drank freely of the cool refreshing water. He was delighted. “How beautiful these arched walls are,” he exclaimed; “how curious to have such rooms hollowed out of the earth.”
There were other apartments to be reached, through a narrow passage, but the driver had no torch with him, and it was not advisable to venture in the darkness. Norman broke off a piece of the sand-stone as a memorial of the cave, and then hastened to the carriage.
Over the prairie, with its abundant blossoms; along the high bluffs upon which St. Paul is built; through a long busy street; a pause at the door of a gentleman whom Mrs. Lester had known in her old home in the East, and they were once more on the Grey Eagle.
And there was the lady whom they had left at the Winslow House, just getting out of the stage. Her face brightened as she heard of Fort Snelling, the lovely Minnehaha, and Carver’s Cave; but then she had had a very satisfactory view of St. Anthony’s Falls, and had been able to verify, in the truth-telling daylight, the vague and indistinct impressions of a moonlight drive.
CHAPTER IX.
DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI.
Thus our idle fancies shaped themselves that day,
Mid the bluffs, and headlands, and the islets gray,
As we travel’d southward in our gallant ship,
Floating, drifting, dreaming down the Mississippi.