Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

“THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS AWAY." Art thou in misery, brother? This I say, Be comforted! Thy grief shall pass away* Art thou elated? Ah! be not too gay, Temper thy joy! this, too, shall pass away. Art thou in danger? Still let reason sway. And cling to hope! This, too, shall pass away! Tempted art thou? In all thine anguish lay One truth to heart—this, too, shall pass away. Do rays of laureled glory round thee play? King-like art thou? This, too, shall pass away. Whate’r thou art, where’er thy footstep) stray, Heed Wisdom’s voice! all things must pass away! Hayne. —Paul Hamilton CAUGHT IN A TORNADO. We had been nearly two months at the ranch, and the weeks had been an almost unvarying round of delight for us both. Nearly all the daylight hours we were out of doors, watching the phases of a life so new to us. Often at night we went out to a little eminence where we could see the sheep come home to their corral. What a solid phalanx of wqoI they looked, and what twinkling little sticks their leg3 were. Poncho had recovered, and was gravely at w r ork every day. I used to think the dog’s face wore an air of tenderness as well as anxiety when he was conducting a de¬ tachment of sheep with lambs. Of course, that w*as a mere fancy, but Val¬ verde bore me out in the notion. To his mind Poncho was capable surprised of any¬ thing. He would not be if someday the dog had suddenly addressed him in the Engl’sh of the plains. mild, It was a quarter to 3 o'clock of a cloudless afternoon when my sister, Nan, and myself started to return from aranch six miles away. We had ridden over there to dinner, and came gaylv canter¬ ing homeward, the sun bright, and for once very little wind blowing. Accord¬ ing to my experience, the West, with its great plains, is the place to become ac¬ quainted with wind. Hardly a day passes but the air sweeps over the vast stretches in a way that is annoying until one gets accustomed to it. It roars through the canons, sucking hoarsely along the gorges. It is one of the mighty aspects of the country, and to me the least pleas¬ ant of anything I had known thus far. But this day, as I have said, it was calm. The sage only moved gently as we rode toward it, and we seemed to hear the notes of birds borne to us from an im¬ mense distance. A great many curlews were circling about, and the prairie dogs sat up in front of their houses, looking at us with pert and inquiring gaze. < 4 There's something in the cry of the birds that I do not like,” said Nan. it “There’s a tone of foreboding in it, and nificent is not an appropriate tone for so mag¬ a day.” But she laughed at her own words as she spoke them. A gray wolf leaped across our path at some dis¬ tance, stopped an instant and eyed us, then fled away rapidly. Again Nan turned uneasily in her saddle and looked about her. As she shook the lines on her pony’s neck she exclaimed, “I am ceriainly under a spell. Do you know, girls, had that I actually thought that gray wolf something to tell us, if we could only understand?” After these remarks, Nan seemed to cheerful, forget her fears, and we all became as was fitting for horsewomen in Colorado. As I look back upon that afternoon, the ride, the bright sunlight, and the experience which followed, all seem, although painfully vivid, as if they had happened in a life of mine in some other world; I can never associate them w r ith myself in this existence. We w ? ere riding toward the northeast, having Vega been to a ranch lying toward the Pass, though a uumber of miles this side of it. That feeling which the birds had aw*akened had proved very transient. My sister suddenly asked in a tone of interest, untinged by fear, if we had noticed the cloud in the south west, and was it customary for Colorado skies to exhibit such freaks! Upon that we all turned us about, and as Nan, with a quick cry, pulled up her horse, we also stooped our ponies and gazed, Speaking for myself, I on'y felt then a keen interest, without a’arm at the sight before me. Until I looked at my co sin's face I did not think of fear. A great wav off. it appeared to me, I was toid afterward it must have been about ten miles distant when we first saw it, was a cloud absolutely black. For the first time I knew what the phrase “inky blackness'’ meant. Neither before nor since have I eyer geea a cloud of that color. It was roughly cone-shaped, the point toward the earth, But even its shape and color were not the most terrible things No about it. words The applies mass was k 4 boiling.” other to the incessant rapid changes in its tex¬ ture, which all the time preserved there the blackness; and through it were constant Sashes of lightning, But we heard no thunder then, I shall never forget the whiteness that came to Nan’s face. Without knowing that I saw them. I yet remembered afterward that her fin¬ gers were clutched painfully about the bridle, and that she reeled slightly in her saddle. “Let me think,” she said, in a low voice. I did not speak, but my sister, who did not see Nan's face, said in a commonplace voice: “Is not that rather a belligerent speci¬ men of a cloud ?” Nan did not apparently hear her; she sat silent for perhaps half a minute, then she turned to us and said quickly: 4 4 I hope you can ride fast, We can’t get home; what good if we could ? There is a narrow gulch about a mile and a half from here. It's the only place I know.” She turned her horse sharply to the right, and told h m fiercely to go. We followed, riding as I had never ridden before. The horses caught fire from us, and raced on in that wild way they have, which is not like the manner of the horses in the east. In spite of the fear which now possessed us all, there was a certain glorious feeling in that ride. After we had turned we could look off at our right at the cloud, which was rush ng on with terrible quickness, and which I now fancied was pursuing us, and us alone. Suddenly there was a thunderous sound toward the w*est, and looking that way I saw a vast herd of cattle sweeping on, a dark, surging mass, with tossing horns glancing white in the sunshine, for the sun was shining brilliantly at this time. It was a stampede. I never knew whether they wertj frighten¬ ed by the cloud or had been urged on by the unexplained impulse that sometimes comes to them to flee mad¬ ly over the plains. At another time this sight would have been of stirring inter¬ est; now I did not care to watch the flight of the cattle. I was too intent on our ow n race against the cloud. The lightning was playing through the black vapor incessantly. More clouds, having the appearance of common “thunder heads,” rose and dispersed themselves over the sky, and at last obscured the sunlight. It was a relief to me when the sun ceased to shine, for the scene seemed less abnormally terrific. Within a few rods of the opening gulch I heard a roar as of oncoming wind. Nan cried out again to her horse, the animals lurched forward yet faster, and in a moment we were all entering the ravine. It was extremely uneven ground, and covered by broken, sharp stones. My sister and I were watching Nan; she slipped off the saddle and hur¬ riedly motioned us to do the same. The instant we were dismounted the horses scrambled rapidly forward farther into the gulch, and we did the same, Nan now in the rear, and driving us along That night I found my shoes cut, and a gash in my foot, but I did not feel the wound when I received it. While we were thus hurrying to get to the deepest shelter of the gully, the roar above us w*as awful, and was increasing every mo ment. It reverberated strangely through the ravine. We could not have heard a word had w*e spoken. We all stopped simultaneously and looked at each other, They were tw*o very white faces that I saw, with strained, frightened her eyes, head Nan made a movement with that we were not to go on; and we crouched down against the rocky sides of the earth. The next instant Emma leaned heavily upon me and silently pointed upward tow’ard the chasm’s opening, where we had entered. The black cloud was just going past our point of vision; it had diiated to twice its former size, but still retained its cylinder shape. If it could be possible, boiling it was more dense than ever, and in its blackness. Balls of fire sped bac.c and forth in the air; or my sight was under an hallucination to that effect. All the phenomena seemed to have their centre in that cone of black cloud. The strangest, the most awful thing of that fearful experience was what I saw* now*, Behind that black cloud, whether fol lowring or driving it I know* not, came a tall cloud of intensest, most dazzling white—a pillar of glory, growing every instant more like a pillar of fire, and soon appearing to control the inky shape, The raving noise wa3 now at its height. In a moment the two mysterious shapes of had passed from our contracted line vision; they " marched on, destroying as they went. The ciash of timber along a stream not far off, the cannonading of the thunder, which had now opened its forces, and above all the overwhelming roar of the wind, made us shrink and cower closer together. A fiercer blast caused us to throw ourselves flat on the stony ground, grasping at each other's hinds. So ignorant was I that I believed at the time that we were in the full power of the tornado, instead of being comparatively gulch. sheltered by the walls of the Afterward I knew that we could hardly have saved our lives had we not been able to leach this ravine. Once I felt a touch on my head, from which my hat had long since gone. I found that it was one of the horses. They had all come back from their first run up the gulch to be near us; the three stood huddled close by, when we had a chance to look. As I recall things in a dream, so I* recall the incidents of the time while we remained in that refuge. Once, in a glare of the lightning, and while my eyes were open and my head raised, I saw several objects flying over the top of the gulch. They were sheep, and their dead, bruised bodies were found, as if they had been flung hard against the ground, after the storm. Once something came down close by me, hitting my hand where I had dug the my fingers unconsciously Jdown dog, into and earth. It was a small prairie Many it lay still in death, near me. found prairie hens, the next day, were dead, with almost all their feathers stripped off by the wind. While the terror lasted, there was hardly a lull in the ferocity of it. I thought we had been hours hiding there, when at last the rain began to come down heavily, and a moment after the wind sensibly dimin¬ ished to a hard gale. We were directly soaked thoroughly, but I think none of us cared for that. The hurling noise of the storm was still deafening, but we felt taht the worst was over, for us at least. That demon cone of cloud was flying further on its road of destruction, but it had left us. We immediately got upon our feet,our horses keeping their heads close to our shoulders as we did so. By the time we had groped and stumbled our way to the entrance of the gulch there was blue sky in the north, and the rain had dwindled to a few heavy drops. breathless, look¬ We stood a moment ing about us with scared eyes. It was a wide plain where we were, a»d all the devastation we saw at first w r as that the row of cottonwoods was lying, torn up. some of them half way across the stream they had bordered. “I am afraid of what I shall find at home,” said Nan. As she spoke, she turned to her horse and swung herself up into the soaked saddle. These ponies are not tall, and it is possible for a woman to mount without help. We both followed her example, and the horses gladly turned homeward. Our soggy, dripping clothes clun" napped clam¬ mily to us, and the heavy skirts dull against the horses’ wet sides. While were within a mile of the house we saw a man riding down rods at ahead a furious gait dog. toward us, knew and a few horseman could ran a We the not be Colonel Stewart, for be had gone away in the morning and was not to re¬ turn until the following day. As we looked, the sun burst out splendidly. The man took off his hat, and waved it with unmistakable ioyousness. A few yards more, and we saw that this was Valverde. lie rode up and turned his horse to go with us, exclaiming: much “I don’t think I was ever gladder in all my days than I be to see you. Folks to the house are ’bout crazy ’bout ye. That was as sizable a tornado as we seldom if ever git in these dig gin’s.” »< Are they safe?” asked Nan. “Was the house in the path of it?” “It warn t,” he replied, “but it was full nigh enough. The big new barn was in the way, and it spread all over the plains. I.shouldn't wonder if some of it was a good deal beyond Pueblo— cowrs and calves killed, corrals complete¬ ly busted, trees turned over, and that greaser’s son,” he added, in a more sol¬ emn tone, “killed dead by a timber. I only hope there ain’t no more deaths to hear of.” Then Valverde asked about what 1 ad happened to us, and when he had heard it, he said, with sombre emphasis, saved that if it all creation “couldn’t have us hadn’t been for that gulch.'’’ in it When the reports came was found that the track of the tornado had been in some places nearly three-quarters of a mile wide, and its length about eighteen miles. We heard that the ‘‘Old Woman Ranch,” as the place where wo had held our picnic was popularly called, had suffered worst of all. The dwed ing had been utterly demolished, the in¬ habitants saving themselves by running in time into a sort of cave near by. It was only because the country was so sparsely populated that more damage was not done; for everything, whether trees, animals, or buildings, in the un¬ protected path of the cyclone were de¬ stroyed or badly injured. For a long time after we heard almost daily of the bitter fate of some unfortunate, It was death itself, or a limb broken, or a home lost. Colonel Stewart and a few other met of means bestirred themselves iunnedi ately and effectually to collect aid for the poorer sufferers by the tornado. For a few days we talked constantly of our adventures in the storm, and compared observations, But in a mar velously short time we had ceased to think of that day, save occasionally, and I had thought my mind would always be shadowed by the memory of that ride for the gulch and the hour we could spent there. Was it an hour? I never tell. In conversing on the matter, we owned to our cousin that Colorado had a few drawbacks. “It is only Paradise that has not its dark side,” said Uncle Stewart, who had overheard our words. “If you girls will now stay through a plague of grass¬ hoppers, you will have country.”—W some right to pass judgment on this eio York Evening Post. Tlie Vitality of Frogs. How long it is possible for frogs to live without air and food has been a matte; of experiment many times; but in the face of well-established instances like those quoted it is difficult to conduct experiments that will be considered as being of a conclusive character. That these creatures should be able to live not for centuries only, but for ages, appears contradictory to all reason and common sense. In some cases frogs have been found in cretaceous rocks. The oldest fossil toads and frog3 occur in tertiary rocks. If, therefore, (hose found in cre¬ taceous rocks had been there from their formation, it would be equivalent to saying that the live frog could be ages and ages older than its fossil relatives. To most people such a declaration would be the height of absurdity. it would If thoroughly inquired into each probably be discovered that in case there was a fissure in the rocks or trees in which frogs have been found large abet enough the for the admission which of water developed embryo frog has there. Certain it is that frogs, when ar¬ tificially secured in air-tight ana water¬ tight vessels, speedily made die. members of the Experiments by French academy a century ago proved this. Milne Edwards, early in the present century, inclosed frogs in vessels impervious to air, and the creatures speedily perished. Three frogs were once inclosed in a close box for eighteen months, at the end of which time one was dead and the remainder in a dying condition. Dr. Macart nty buried a toad in a vessel covered with a slate about a foot deep in the ground. At the end of a fortnight it seemed well and as plump as before. When, however, he inclosed the same toad in an air-tight vessel and buried it it soon died, and at the end of a week was much decayed. Dr. Buck land made some experiments which are claimed as conclusive. He placed twelve toads separately in twelve holes, cut in blocks of hard, flinty sandstone. They were firmly sealed in. The imprisoned animals were buried three feet deep on November 2*1, 182;). At the same holes time four toads were depos¬ ited in cut in the heart of an apple tree and the opening securely plugged. Four others were also placed in plaster of Paris, covered with luting. On De¬ cember 10, 1826, all the buried toads were examined. All in the hard stone and in the tree anrl two in the plaster of Paris were dead. The remainder were dying, but some placed iu a softer stone were in tolerably good health, and placed some in were actually fatter than when the holes. From this it would appear that in positions where water can pene¬ trate frogs may live and even thrive, al¬ though buried at a considerable depth, entirely away from the light and any visible means of subsistence.— Chambers' Journal. Rather set in their ways—Compositors, —Life.