THE PIONEER MOTHER
not a ray of the sun could reach the ground. The trees grew very tall, and one a short way outside the forest on the edge of a little prairie being measured with instruments, was found to be about 308 feet in height.
An almost obliterated Indian trail went over the divide between the rivers, and so anxious were the white women to see each other that it was a very common thing for them to go over it. One hundred yards up the trail there was nothing to see but trees, and one mile in the woods was as far away from human help as the wilds of Siberia.
One day when one of them with two of her little boys was on the trail in the midst of the woods, a large cougar suddenly appeared in it not forty yards away and stood looking at her. Now, the cougar is an uncanny beast, and in151
