Beadle's Frontier Series #25: Indian Jim—A Tale of the Minnesota Massacre — page 32: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

it. Ti is quite small, but I have often wiahed that { had your ‘ability to transfer its likeness to paper.” “Guide me to that.” ‘The two took-a-. northward direction toward Lake Wita ‘Chaw Tah.. The one, however, of which they were in quest, lay to a considerable distance south, and it was not their inten- F - tion, upon-the present, occasion, to proceed as-far as the firs - Mentioned:-shect of water. Their journey was.over a broken | “~prairie,svith: here--and. there a grove of. timber,. until they _weached a-hilly piece of woods and rocks, through which they | | passed a few-hundred. yards, when they came to the deatine -tion- of their. trip. . It-was,anenchanting scene. The lake itself, as Marian _-expressed.it,-was a perfect gem, embedded in this wild-solitude. “Iis norihern shore consisted. almost-entirely of huge~ boulders ~and rocks, thrown hither and-thither, as if from the hands of -Sportive giants, Here and-there a tiny stream rippled over them, falling. upon. the sandy beach below, and. making its ~ ‘way into the; placid. bosom of the lake. “Wild grasses and shrubbery set off to advantage the gray masses of stone, while » here’ and.there:a bushy tree added variety and effect to the .-egeene. ‘The eastern, western. and. southern sides of the lake were fringed: by a. forest of. considerable. extent—not: an ordi- -- mary, monotonous-forest, but one diversified by gorges, glens - and waterfalls; some of which were of no insignificant size. ‘The depths. of the Jake were of a clear, icy coldness, and the trees, and rocks, and waterfalls along its margin could not have -been»more distinctly reflected, had the sheet of water been a mirror. .Qccasionally, a ripple here and there, gaye the . images a fantastic, tremulous motion, but they gradually re- _ gumed_ their natural shape and appearance again. Several— birds, circling overhead, now and. then swooped down to ah surface, and then.shot upward again, as if. the touch of their “wizgs to the glassy water, had filled them with an intoxicating / ecstacy. Add to ail this an air of quiet seclusion, of cheerful ‘solitude; and the picture is finished. Halleck was delighted with the scene. | | “TY 4ell you,’»said. he, enthusiastically, “Italy could wot -gurpase this. It Jacks but one thing—the element of life~ fo set off to greater advantage this death-like solitude.” GOmichbooksco |