"Some people say," said Jake at length, yawning and digging his heels in the ground preparatory to getting up, "some people say that the Indian is a fool, an' the Indian says the white man is a fool. On a day like this I al'us reckon the Indian has a little the best o' the argyment." He pulled his team out from the side of a haystack, where they had been feeding with as little concern as if the hay were their own, and presently we rattled off down the trail again. On the way we passed the field in which the farmer was seeding. We waved our hats at him, and from the distance he waved his hat back at us, and we drove on into the prairies. On account of our afternoon rest Jake drove until almost sundown. We were now in a slightly rolling country, and suddenly he swung from the trail and pulled up on the top of a little knoll. From this little vantage point we could see the unbroken sweep of the prairies, miles and miles in every direction. "Is this the bald-headed?" I asked in a low voice, as though touching on something almost sacred. "This is the bald-headed," he answered, solemnly. "See, everywhere, sky an' grass--sky an' grass. Ah, there, there's an exception." I followed the line of his extended arm. Far across the plains I saw a flashing light, as of a heliograph. "The window of a settler's shanty, twenty miles from here, if it's a foot," he explained. "Look how green the grass is. The evenin' light makes it that way, somehow." It was true. The grass had taken a deeper shade of green with the light falling aslant across it. The sun hung like a yellow ball in a sky of champagne, and the long shadows of our horses and wagon stretched down the slope of the little hill. But most impressive of all was the silence, a silence as of heaven and earth brooding, brooding, brooding over this scene as they had done from the dawn of time; aye, and before that, far into the vague aeons of eternity. . . . I wished that Jean might have been there. We made our camp on the hill, if we can be said to have made camp at all. Jake found a little slough (pronounced _slew_) of snow water not far away, and he unharnessed his horses and hobbled them nearby. I was fussing with the tent when he returned. "We won't need that, son," and I thought there was a note almost of affection in his voice that made me warm to the man. "It couldn't rain to-night on a bet. Clean out the wagon an' you two boys sleep on the floor of it. You get the benefit o' the springs that way, an' it's dryer'n the ground." "But where will you sleep?" "Oh, I'll roll up somewhere. I'm an old-timer." Jake gathered some dry grass and buffalo chips and out of an astonishingly little fire he soon had the tea boiling. Then he fried bacon and laid the strips of hot bacon on slabs of bread. And we ate bacon and bread, and then jam and bread, and drank hot black tea, while the slow twilight settled down about us.