A few of the original lords of the forests are here, and they are the only idlers of this region. They lounge in the streets, squat in groups under the lee of buildings, and pick animated _somethings_ from their hair! Their chief appears in an old army coat with three stars on each shoulder, indicating that he ranks as a lieutenant-general among his people. He walks with dignity, although his old black stove-pipe hat is badly squashed. The warriors follow him, wrapped in blankets, with eagle feathers stuck into their long black hair, and are as dignified as the chief. Labor! not they. Pale-faces and squaws may work, they never. Squaw-power is their highest conception of a labor-saving machine. They have fished in the leaping torrent, but never thought of its being a giant that might be put to work for their benefit. It is evident that a great manufacturing industry must spring up in this region. At Minneapolis, St. Cloud, and here on the St. Louis, we find the three principal water-powers of the Northwest. The town of Thompson, named in honor of one of the proprietors, Mr. Edgar A. Thompson of Philadelphia, has been laid out at the falls, and being situated on the line of the railroad, and so convenient to the lake, will probably have a rapid growth. The St. Paul and Mississippi Railroad, which winds up the northern bank of the river, crosses the stream at that point, and strikes southward through the forests to St. Paul. The road, in addition to its grant of land, has received from the city of St. Paul $200,000 in city bonds, and this county of St. Louis at the head of the lake has given $150,000 in county bonds. The lands of this company are generally heavily timbered,--with pine, maple, ash, oak, and other woods. The white pines of this region are almost as magnificent as those that formerly were the glory of Maine and New Hampshire. Norway pines abound. Besides transporting the lumber from its own extensive tracts and the lands of the government adjoining, it will be the thoroughfare for an immense territory drained by the Snake, Kettle, St. Louis, and St. Croix Rivers. The lands that bear such magnificent forest-trees are excellent for agriculture. Nowhere in the East have I ever seen ranker timothy and clover than we saw on our journey from St. Paul. The company offers favorable terms to all settlers. Men from Maine and New Hampshire are already locating along the line, and setting up saw-mills. They were lumbermen in the East, and they prefer to follow the same business in the West, rather than to speed the plough for a living. I doubt not that the chances for making money are quite as good in the timbered region as on the prairies, for the lumber will pay for the land several times over, which, when put into grain or grass, yields enormously. CHAPTER IX. THE MINING REGION.