The two are good at pulling. They have shown their power by dragging one of the greatest enterprises of modern times over obstacles that would have discouraged men of weaker nerve. The public never will know of the hard work performed by them in starting the Northern Pacific Railroad,--how they have raised it from obscurity, from obloquy, notwithstanding opposition and prejudice. The time will come when the public will look upon the enterprise in its true light. When the road is opened from Lake Superior westward, when the traveller finds on every hand a country of surpassing richness, a climate in the Northwest as mild as that of Pennsylvania, when he sees the numberless attractions and exhaustless resources of the land, then, and not till then, will the labors of Governor Smith and his associates in carrying on this work be appreciated. To-night they enter with all the zest of youth into the project of building a camp-fire, and tug at the rope with the enthusiasm of boyhood. It is a strong team. Our doctor of divinity, whether in the pulpit or on the prairie, pulls with "a forty parson power," to use Byron's simile. And our M. D., whether he has hold of a gnarled oak or the stump of a molar in the mouth of a pretty young lady, is certain to master it. [Illustration: A STRONG TEAM.] A member of Congress "made believe pull," as we used to say in our boyhood, but complacently smoked his pipe the while; the correspondent tipped a wink at the smoker, seized hold of a lever, shouted and yelled as if laying out all his strength, and pulled--about two pounds! But _we_ dragged it in amid the hurrahs of the teamsters, wiped the sweat from our brows, and then through the evening sat round the blazing log, and made the air ring with our merry laughter. So we rubbed out the growing wrinkles, smoothed the lines of care, and turned back the shadow creeping up the dial. CHAPTER VII. IN THE FOREST. In preceding chapters the characteristics of the country west of the Mississippi have been set forth; but many a man seeking a new home would be lonely upon the prairies. The lumberman of Maine, who was born in the forest, who in childhood listened to the sweet but mournful music of the ever-sighing pines, would be home-sick away from the grand old woods. The trees are his friends. The open country would be a solitude, but in the depths of the forest he would ever find congenial company. There the oaks, the elms, and maples reach out their arms lovingly above him, sheltering him alike from winter's blasts and summer's heats. Even though he may have no poetry in his soul, the woods will have a charm for him, for there he finds a harvest already grown and waiting to be gathered, as truly as if it were so many acres of ripened wheat.