“Hark! God be praised, there is a gun! and there is another! and there is another! They have come on the right track, and I am safe!” So she shouted again, and sounded her war-whoop again, and listened,――and then again, and listened again. One more gun! but then no more! Poor Inez! Certainly they were all on one side of her. If only it was not so piteously dark! If she could only walk half the distance in that direction which her fifty sentry-beats made put together! But when she struggled that way through the tangle, and over one wet log and another, it was only to find her poor wet feet sinking down into mud and water! She did not dare keep on. All that was left for her was to find her tramping-ground again, and this she did. “Good God, take care of me! My poor dear father――what would he say if he knew his child was dying close to her friends? Dear mamma, keep watch over your little girl!”―― Illustration: (‡ decoration) Illustration: (‡ decoration) WM. DEAN HOWELLS. (THE REALISTIC NOVELIST OF AMERICA.) THE West has contributed many notable men to our nation within the last half of the present century. There seems to be something in the spirit of that developing section to stimulate the aspirations and ambitions of those who grow up in its atmosphere. Progress, Enterprise, “Excelsior” are the three words written upon its banner as the motto for the sons of the middle West. It is there we go for many of our leading statesmen. Thence we draw our presidents more largely than from any other section, and the world of modern literature is also seeking and finding its chiefest leaders among the sons and daughters of that region. True they are generally transplanted to the Eastern centres of publication and commercial life, but they were born and grew up in the West.