The prairie trails are simply earth roads, it being impossible to get stone for them. The very best trail is much like the worst cart road in England. The trail is made by scooping out the earth on either side of a wide track, and throwing it into the middle, where the clods are baked as hard as bricks by the sun. These clods would knock the bottom out of any car which had not a high clearance--the more so as a used trail has ruts about two feet deep. Trail-making is usually done by a scoop drawn by two horses, but in some places a kind of motor-plough is used. In dry weather a simple track across the prairie made by carts and horses is much easier going, but these tracks are impossible when the snow is melting, or after the heavy thunderstorms of summer. Therefore all the main trails have to be raised in the middle to let off the water, which would otherwise stand till it formed sloughs. When once on the trail you have to keep there, as it is either bordered by a three-foot bank whence the earth was dug, or else it slopes straight into a slough. These sloughs are like great ponds, their bottoms are covered with deep mud, and if it once gets in, a car sinks deeper and deeper, and cannot be got out. The sloughs are very beautiful, reflecting the wonderful blue of the sky, or the marvellous colours of sunset. A prairie sunset is quite beyond description. I have never seen such colours in England. The flowers on the prairie are lovely, forming a changing kaleidoscope of colour throughout the summer months. They border the trails and the sloughs, and grow in riotous profusion on unbroken ground. When we first took the trail I specially noticed a lovely little pale mauve anemone. There are also many beautiful birds on the prairie, the most striking being the red-winged blackbird--a very big blackbird with glinting red feathers on the top of his wings. There was also a robin about twice the size of his English cousin, and a yellow-breasted bird which sang a very sweet little song, but never seemed to finish it. There were prairie chickens of a greyish brown, wild duck and large snipe, and a sort of water-hen.