Page:The Overland Monthly Volume 5 Issue 3.djvu/69

 fantry reposed softly beneath one of the seats. The gay prattle of the children, who, after the first few moments, were oblivious to our presence, broke in singularly, but not unpleasantly, with the solemnstillness of the surroundings. We yielded to the fascinations of the spot, and lingered there for hours. Shortly after our arrival, a gentleman in civil costume, byt with an unmistakable military air, joined us. There was something about him which reminded me of the old fort itself: perhaps as much as any thing the absence of hurry and the air of calm introspection. A half-hour of silent sympathy made us all acquainted. I can not tell who began the conversation, or how it was introduced; but we soon found that our new friend had been one of the military command who had built the fort—not the present one, but one of logs—nearly half a century before. As he related incident and anec

dote, I forgot the steamers snorting up and down the river, and the cars thundering beneath our feet, and went back to the scenes which he described so vividly, and with just a touch of that pleasant sadness which belongs to the

past. Their nearest White neighbors were at the military post at Prairie du Chien, four hundred miles distant; and their only excitement the arrival of the mail, once a month.

The celebrated Keokuk was sometimes the mail-carrier; and his infinite versatility a great source of amusement to the soldiers. He was swift, agile, a natural gymnast, a wonderful imitator,

and, withal, possessed of a retentive memory. He delighged to watch the drill of the soldiers, and on one occasion surprised them by floating past the fort erect in his bark-canoe, and going through an exact manual exercise. He always presented the letters to the persons to whom they were addressed, apparently reading the address from the envelope. This, however, was a mere act of memory, as he insisted upon hearing the address of each one before receiving it.

The winters were bitter-cold, and they often suffered from insufficient supplies. On one occasion, they abandoned the fort entirely, and walked down the river on the ice to Prairie du Chien. There were days and nights of suffering, and they at last arrived at their destination nearly perished with cold and hunger. "Ah!" said the narrator, turning to me, "the telling of these things seems only a summer's-day romance; but, my dear young lady, the actual experience takes much of the romance from frontier life." We bade him a pleasant "Good-by," and left him gazing out upon the river and plain, filled with memories whereof the pain had gone and what was pleasant remained, undimmed by time.

Here and there, above the purple haze of the violet-covered prairie over which we rode, the stately cone-flowers lifted their golden heads, like glowing suns. This is as it was years ago. Far beyond, the sun sank beneath the horizon, leaving a joy which civilization neither will give nor take away.