The short, hot Summer, with its long-drawn-out days full of coaxing
sunshine, had ripened Nature's harvest of purple-belled pea-vine, and
yellow-blossomed gaillardia, and tall straight-growing moose weed; had
turned the heart-shaped leaves of the poplars into new sovereigns that
fell with softened clink from the branches to earth, waiting for its
brilliant mantle--a fairy mantle all splashed blood-red by crimson maple
woven in a woof of tawny bunch-grass and lace-fronded fern.
Oh, but it was beautiful! that land of the Boundaries, where Black Fox
was King; and which stretched from the Saskatchewan to where the Peace
first bounded in splashing leaps from the boulder-lined foothills of the
Rockies; all beautiful, spruce-forested, and muskeg-dotted--the soft
muskegs knee deep under a moss carpet of silver and green.
The Saskatoons, big brother to the Huckleberry, were drying on the bush
where they had ripened; the Raspberries had grown red in their time and
gladdened the heart of Muskwa, the Bear; the Currants clustered like
strings of black pearls in the cool beds of lazy streams, where
pin-tailed Grouse, and Pheasant in big, red cravat, strutted and crouked
in this glorious feeding-ground so like a miniature vineyard; the
Cranberries nestled shyly in the moss; and the Wolf and Willow-berries
gleamed like tiny white stars along the banks of the swift-running,
emerald-green Saskatchewan and Athabasca. All this was in the heritage
land of Black Fox, and Muskwa, and Mooswa.
It was at this time, in the full Autumn, that Whisky-Jack flew North and
South, and East and West, and called to a meeting the Dwellers that were
in the Boundaries. This was for the choosing of their King, a yearly
observance, and for the settling of other matters.