A flourish of trumpets, and open the gates!" Northward and southward, and west and

man:

away

The gates were thrown wide; the procession To the Brazos, to where our lodges laybeganOne broad and unbroken sea of brown, Five hundred fair ladies, each bearing a Awaiting the curtains of night to come down To cover us over and conceal our flight 'Twas her husband, her person thus proud to With my brown bride, won from an Indian bedeck, With his arms-where they ought to be- That lay in the rear the full ride of a night. round his wife's neck.

'Tis said that the emperor, melted to tears At the sight of these ladies thus saving their dears,

town

We lounged in the grasses; her eyes were in

mine,

And her hands on my knee, and her hair was as wine

Relinquished his spoils, spared the citizens' In its wealth and its flood, pouring on and lives,

all over

And pardoned the men for the sake of their Her bosom wine-red, and pressed never by wives.

My story is finished; I must not im-
pair

The beautiful truth 'tis intended to bear—
That the "wealth of the mind" is all other

above,

one;

And her touch was as warm as the tinge of the clover

Burnt brown as it reached to the kiss of the

sun;

And her words were as low as the lutethroated dove,

And the richest of treasures is conjugal love. And as laden with love as the heart when it

R. S. SHARPE.

beats

In its hot eager answer to earliest love, And feet of wild horses hard flying before Or the bee hurried home by its burden of I hear like a sea breaking high on the shore, While the buffalo come like a surge of the

We lay low in the grass on the broad plain Driven far by the flame, driving fast on us
levels,
Old Revels and I and my stolen brown bride, As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in his
And the heavens of blue and the harvest of

And speed you if ever for life you would Like the rush of an army, and a flash in the speed,

Rushing fast upon us, as the wind sweeping | And saw his horse stagger; I saw his head.

And afar from the desert blew hollow and Hard down on his breast, and his naked hoarse.

Not a word, not a wail, from a lip was let fall;

breast stooping

Low down to the mane, as so swifter and

bolder

Ran reaching out for us the red-footed fire. Not a kiss from my bride, not a look nor low To right and to left the black buffalo came, call A terrible surf on a red sea of flame, Rushing on in the rear, reaching high, reach

Of love-note or courage; but on o'er the plain
So steady and still, leaning low to the mane,
With the heel to the flank and the hand to
the rein,

Rode we on, rode we three, rode we nose and
gray nose,

Reaching long, breathing loud, as a creviced

wind blows;

Yet we broke not a whisper, we breathed not

a prayer:

There was work to be done, there was death in the air,

And the chance was as one to a thousand for all.

ing higher,

And he rode neck to neck to a buffalo bull, The monarch of millions, with shaggy mane full

Of smoke and of dust, and it shook with desire

Of battle, with rage and with bellowings. loud

And unearthly, and up through its lowering cloud

Came the flash of his eyes like a half-hidden fire,

While his keen crooked horns, through the storm of his mane,

Gray nose to gray nose, and each steady Like black lances lifted and lifted again;

And I looked but this once, for the fire

licked through,

And he fell and was lost as we rode two and two.

Flew around like the spray on a storm-driven I looked to my left then, and nose, neck and deck.

Twenty miles! Thirty miles!

tant speck,

shoulder

Thirty miles! A dim dis- Sank slowly, sank surely, till back to my thighs,

Then a long-reaching line, and the Brazos in And up through the black blowing veil of

And of pity for me as she felt the smoke | And swift she would join me, and all would

And flames reaching far for her glorious hair. Her sinking steed faltered; his eager ears fell To and fro and unsteady, and all the neck's swell Did subside and recede and the nerves fall The last that I saw was a look of delight as dead. That I should escape-a love, a desire,

Without bloodshed or word. And now, as she fell

From the front and went down in the ocean of fire.

Then she saw sturdy Paché still lorded his Yet never a word, not one look of appeal, head, Lest I should reach hand, should stay hand

With a look of delight; for nor courage nor bribe,

Nor naught but my bride, could have brought him to me.

For he was her father's, and at South Santafee Had once won a whole herd, sweeping everything down

or stay heel

One instant for her in my terrible flight.

Then the rushing of fire around me and under,

And the howling of beasts and a sound as of thunder

In a race where the world came to run for Beasts burning and blind and forced onward the crown. and over And so, when I won the true heart of my As the passionate flame reached around them,

bride

My neighbor's and deadliest enemy's child, And child of the kingly war-chief of his tribe

She brought me this steed to the border the
night

She met Revels and me in her perilous flight
From the lodge of the chief to the North
Brazos side,

And said, so half guessing of ill as she smiled,
As if jesting, that I, and I only, should ride
The fleet-footed Paché, so if kin should pur-

sue

and wove her

Red hands in their hair, and kissed hot till they died,

Till they died with a wild and a desolate

moan,

As a sea heartbroken on the hard brown

stone.

And into the Brazos I rode all alone—
All alone, save only a horse long-limbed,
And blind and bare and burnt to the skin.
Then, just as the terrible sea came in
And tumbled its thousands hot into the tide,
Till the tide blocked up and the swift stream
brimmed

I should surely escape without other ado
Than to ride, without blood, to the North In eddies, we struck on the opposite side.
Brazos side,

And await her, and wait till the next hollow Sell Paché-blind Paché? Now, mister,

Hung her horn in the palms, when surely You have slept in my tent and partook of my cheer

and soon