A wide stretch of rolling prairie, with the Keya Paha river to the north. Though the river is but two and one-half miles away, yet the water is lost to view, and we look beyond to the great range of bluffs extending far east and west along its northern banks, and which belong to the Sioux Indian reservation, they are covered with grass, but without shrubbery of any kind, yet on their sides a few gray stones or rocks can be seen even from here. South of the butte a short distance is a small stream called Holt Creek. Near it we can see two "claim takers" preparing their homes; aside from these but two other houses, a plowman, and some cattle are the only signs of life. Mr. N. tells me the butte is on the claim taken by Mr. Tiffiny, and Messrs. Fuller's and Wood's and others of the colony are near. After all the sight-seeing and gathering is done, I sit me down on a rock all alone, to have a quiet think all to myself. Do you wonder, reader, that I feel lonely and homesick, amid scenes so strange and new? Wonder will our many friends of the years agone think of me and keep the day for me in places where, with them, I have gathered the wild flowers and leaves of spring? But Mr. N. comes up and interrupts me with: "Do you know, Miss Fulton, your keeping a May-day seems so strange to me? Do not think our western girls would think of such a thing!" "Since you wonder at it, I will tell you, very briefly, my story. It was instituted by mere accident by me in 1871, and I have kept the 15th of May of every year since then in nature's untrained gardens, gathering of all the different flowers and leaves that are in bloom, or have unfolded, and note the difference in the seasons, and also the difference in the years to me. No happier girl ever sang a song than did I on my first May-day; and the woodland was never more beautiful, dressed in the bright robes of an early spring. Every tree in full leaf, every wild flower of spring in bloom, and I could not but gather of all--even the tiniest. The next 15th of May, I, by mere happening, went to the woods, and remembering it was the anniversary of my accidental maying of the previous year, I stopped to gather as before; but the flowers were not so beautiful, nor the leaves so large. Then, too, I was very sad over the serious illness of a loved sister. I cannot tell of all the years, but in '74 I searched for May flowers with tear-dimmed eyes--sister May was dead, and everywhere it was desolate. '75. "A belated snow cloud shook to the ground" a few flakes, and we gathered only sticks for bouquets, with buds scarcely swollen. In '81, I climbed Point McCoy near Bellefont, Pa., a peak of the Muncy mountains and a range of the Alleghanys, and looked for miles, and miles away, over mountains and vales, and gathered of flowers that almost painted the mountain side, they were so plentiful and bright.