The air was singularly clear and bracing, producing an effect upon a pair of healthy lungs like that felt on first reaching the sea-beach from a residence inland. An illusion which had followed many of us from boyhood was utterly dissipated by the early dawn in this strange land. This was not the fact that the "great American desert" of our school-days is not a desert at all, for this we had known for years; it related to those floods of flame and stifling smoke with which sensational writers of western novels are wont to sweep, as with a besom of destruction, the whole of prairie-land once at least in every story. Young America, wasting uncounted gallons of midnight oil in the perusal of peppery tales of border life, little suspects how slight the foundation upon which his favorite author has reared the whole vast superstructure of thrilling adventure. The scene of these heart-rending narratives is usually laid in a boundless plain covered with tall grass, and the _dramatis personæ_ are an indefinite number of buffalo and Indians, a painfully definite one of emigrants, two persons unhappy enough to possess a beautiful daughter, and a lover still more unhappy in endeavoring to acquire title, a rascally half-breed burning to prevent the latter feat, and a rare old plainsman specially brought into existence to "sarcumvent" him. [Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION. BUFFALO_ FIRE ON THE PLAINS, ACCORDING TO NOVELS.] [Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION_ FIRE ON THE PLAINS, AS IT IS.] At the most critical juncture the "waving sea of grass" usually takes fire, in an unaccountable manner--perhaps from the hot condition of the combatants, or the quantities of burning love and revenge which are recklessly scattered about. Multitudes of frightened buffalo and gay gazelles make the ground shake in getting out of the way, and the flames go to licking the clouds, while the emigrants go to licking the Indians. Although the fire can not be put out, one or the other, or possibly both, of the combatants are "put out" in short order. Should the miserable parents succeed in getting their daughter safely through this peril, it is only because she is reserved for a further laceration of our feelings. The half-breed soon gets her, and the lover and rare old plainsman get on his track immediately afterward. And so on _ad libitum_. We beg pardon for condensing into our sunrise reflections the material for a novel, such as has often run well through three hundred pages, and furnished with competencies half as many bill-posters. It is unpleasant to have one's traditionary heroes and heroines all knocked into pi before breakfast. It makes one crusty. Possibly, it may be their proper desert, but, if so, could be better digested after dinner.