The grass, not yet tall enough fully to ripple as it would a half month later, stood waving over the black-burned ground which the semicivilized Indians had left the fall before.

Flowers dotted it, sometimes white like bits of old ivory on the vast rug of spindrift--the pink verbena, the wild indigo, the larkspur and the wild geranium--all woven into a wondrous spangled carpet.

At times also appeared the shy buds of the sweet wild rose, loveliest flower of the prairie.

Tall rosinweeds began to thrust up rankly, banks of sunflowers prepared to fling their yellow banners miles wide.

The opulent, inviting land lay in a ceaseless succession of easy undulations, stretching away illimitably to far horizons, "in such exchanging pictures of grace and charm as raised the admiration of even these simple folk to a pitch bordering upon exaltation." Here lay the West, barbaric, abounding, beautiful.