It is a perplexing business.  First, she fell down out of the tree—­she and the blanket; and the bear caught her and fondled her—­her and the blanket; then she fell up into the tree again—­leaving the blanket; meantime the lover goes war-whooping home and comes back ‘heeled,’ climbs the tree, jumps down on the bear, the girl jumps down after him—­ apparently, for she was up the tree—­resumes her place in the bear’s arms along with the blanket, the lover rams his knife into the bear, and saves—­whom, the blanket?  No—­nothing of the sort.  You get yourself all worked up and excited about that blanket, and then all of a sudden, just when a happy climax seems imminent you are let down flat—­nothing saved but the girl.  Whereas, one is not interested in the girl; she is not the prominent feature of the legend.  Nevertheless, there you are left, and there you must remain; for if you live a thousand years you will never know who got the blanket.  A dead man could get up a better legend than this one.  I don’t mean a fresh dead man either; I mean a man that’s been dead weeks and weeks.

We struck the home-trail now, and in a few hours were in that astonishing Chicago—­a city where they are always rubbing the lamp, and fetching up the genii, and contriving and achieving new impossibilities.  It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago—­she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them.  She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you passed through the last time.  The Pennsylvania road rushed us to New York without missing schedule time ten minutes anywhere on the route; and there ended one of the most enjoyable five-thousand-mile journeys I have ever had the good fortune to make.

APPENDIX A

(From the new Orleans times Democrat of march 29, 1882.)

VOYAGE OF THE TIMES-DEMOCRAT’S RELIEF BOAT THROUGH THE INUNDATED REGIONS

It was nine o’clock Thursday morning when the ‘Susie’ left the Mississippi and entered Old River, or what is now called the mouth of the Red.  Ascending on the left, a flood was pouring in through and over the levees on the Chandler plantation, the most northern point in Pointe Coupee parish.  The water completely covered the place, although the levees had given way but a short time before.  The stock had been gathered in a large flat-boat, where, without food, as we passed, the animals were huddled together, waiting for a boat to tow them off.  On the right-hand side of the river is Turnbull’s Island, and on it is a large plantation which formerly was pronounced one of the most fertile in the State.  The water has hitherto allowed it to go scot-free in usual floods, but now broad sheets of water told only where fields were.  The top of the protecting levee could be seen here and there, but nearly all of it was submerged.