THE PRAIRIE ON FIRE*

BY GEO. P. MORRIS.

THE shades of evening closed around
The boundless prairies of the west,
As, grouped in sadness on the ground,
A band of pilgrims leaned to rest;
Upon the tangled weeds were laid,

The mother and her youngest born,

Who slept, while others watched and prayed,
And thus the weary night went on.

Thick darkness shrouded earth and sky

When, on the whispering winds there came,

The Teton's shrill and thrilling cry,

And heaven was pierced with shafts of flame.

*This ballad is founded, in part, upon a thrilling story of the West, related by Mr. Cooper, the novelist.

The sun seemed rising through the haze,
But with an aspect dread and dire!
The very air appeared to blaze!

Oh God! the prairie was on fire!

Around the centre of the plain

A belt of flame retreat denied, And, like a furnace glowed the train

That walled them in on every side:

And onward rolled the torrent wildWreaths of dense smoke obscured the sky!

Down knelt the mother and her child,

And all-save one-shrieked out "We die !"

"Not so!" he cried-"help-clear the sedge!
Strip bare a circle to the land!"
That done, he hastened to its edge,
And grasped a rifle in his hand:
Dried weeds he held beside the pan,
Which kindled, at a flash, the mass!
Now "fire fight fire!" he said, as ran
The forked flames among the grass.

On three sides now the torrent flew,

But on the fourth no more it raved! Then large and broad the circle grew,

And thus the pilgrim band was saved!

The flames receded far and wide,

The mother had not prayed in vain! God had the Teton's arts defied!

His scythe of fire had swept the plain.

THE DUEL.

A PASSAGE FROM HISTORY.

BY MRS. C. H. BUTLER.

It was during the campaign of 1779 that the scene which the artist has so admirably depicted occurred.

Washington had established his head-quarters at West Point, while General Putnam was stationed with several bodies of troops at Buttermilk Falls, about two miles below. At this period, the fortifications at West Point were constructed under the supervision of Putnam, and to one of the forts the gallant hero also gave his name. It is now but a ruin, yet, thank heaven, he has built himself a monument in the hearts of his countrymen, which shall endure as long as the mountains in which those stirring scenes were enacted.

It chanced, one day, General Putnam made some remark within hearing of an English officer, then a prisoner on parole, in which he reflected somewhat severely upon the character of the British. The officer received the remark as a personal insult, and immediately sent the general a challenge.