"Could it be the grave of Joe or Henri ?" For an instant the idea sent a chill to his heart; but it passed quickly, for a second glance showed that the grave was old, and that the wooden cross had stood over it for years.
Dick turned away with a saddened heart; and that night, as he pored over the pages of his Bible, his mind was filled with many thoughts about eternity and the world to come.

He, too, must come to the grave one day, and quit the beautiful prairies and his loved rifle.

It was a sad thought; but while he meditated he thought upon his mother.

"After all," he murmured, "there must be happiness _without_ the rifle, and youth, and health, and the prairie! My mother's happy, yet she don't shoot, or ride like wild-fire over the plains." Then that word which had been sent so sweetly to him through her hand came again to his mind, "My son, give me thine heart;" and as he read God's Book, he met with the word, "Delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desire of thine heart." "_The desire of thine heart_" Dick repeated this, and pondered it till he fell asleep.
A misfortune soon after this befell Dick Varley which well-nigh caused him to give way to despair.

For some time past he had been approaching the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains--those ragged, jagged, mighty hills which run through the whole continent from north to south in a continuous chain, and form, as it were, the backbone of America.
One morning, as he threw the buffalo robe off his shoulders and sat up, he was horrified to find the whole earth covered with a mantle of snow.