In a thousand homes there was content with this new land, so wild at one time, but now so quickly tamed, so calm, so gentle, so thoroughly subdued.
The sun came on, valiantly stripped bare, knowing what was to be.
Still louder rose the requiem of the wire.

The sky smiled on.

There was no token to strike with alarm these human beings, their faculties dulled by a thousand years of differentiation.

"Peace and goodwill," said men; for now it was coming on to Christmastide.

But the wire was seeking to betray the secret of the sky, which was resolved to carry war, to sweep these beings from the old range that once was tenantless! To the north there appeared a long, black cloud, hanging low as the trail of some far-off locomotive, new upon the land.