Is a reverse process going on here, we
wondered, from that we have seen in the prairies, and are these sheets
of water to change slowly into marsh, and so to firm land again? There
are a number of such lakes as these, and on the heights above one of
the largest, which they have called Bethel, a family of Canadian
emigrants have recently "taken up a homestead."
There was still another chain of prairie-lakes, the "Old Field Ponds,"
stretching north and south on our right, and as we wound around them,
plashing now and again through the slowly-encroaching water, we had
'Gator-bone Pond upon our right. The loneliness of the scene was
indescribable: for hours we had been winding in and out among the still
lagoons or climbing and descending the ever-steeper, darker hills.
Night was drawing on; stealthy mists came creeping grayly up from the
endless Old Field Ponds; fireflies and glow-worms and will-o'-the-wisps
danced and glowered amid the intense blackness; frogs croaked,
mosquitos shrilled, owls hooted; Barney's usual deliberate progress
became a snail's pace, which hinted plainly at blankets and the
oat-sack,--when, all at once, a bonfire flamed up from a distant
height, and the sagacious quadruped quickened his pace along the steep
hill-road.
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