On the Prairie.
In after life Dick never forgot those weeks of wandering. The freedom
and beauty of all that summer world was indelibly impressed upon his
memory. His was a nature readily moved to admiration, and had powers
of observation unusual in a lad of his age. But there were two small
scenes, each perfect in pictorial beauty, which he afterwards
recollected with special clearness.
They were tramping steadily along the bottom of a small ravine, one
late July afternoon, through a luxuriance of fern and vine almost
tropical. Dick, watching the dark woods ahead, saw a sudden little
flame of colour leap to life against the black stems of the pines--a
flame so intense in its ruddy gold that it seemed to throb and pulsate
like a tongue of fire. A sunbeam, slanting through the branches, had
been caught and held in the cup of an open red lily--that was all. But
the effect was one which no artist on earth could have reproduced.
Another time, they were paddling up a small stream in a little canoe of
Peter's building--a little canoe he had hurriedly made, with Dick's
help, while they camped for the purpose--a flimsy, crank craft, but
serviceable, and sufficient for their needs. They were gliding slowly
along in the shadow of the bank, when they came upon a tall brown crane
standing quietly on one yellow leg in the calm shallows. He did not
offer to move as they slipped past, but stood there peacefully, in
water which reflected the sunset skies and small opalescent clouds
floating above. Backed by the green rushes, surrounded by the mirrored
glow of sunset, he stood and watched them out of sight with wild, sad
eyes--untamed, fearless, and alone. And thus he remained always in
Dick's remembrance.
After a time, they hid the canoe in a tiny creek, and took to
land-travelling again. Peter's haste increased, and Dick was sometimes
hard put to it to keep up with him. His caution increased also as they
advanced into more open country--country which gradually grew to
foreshadow the prairies. But Peter kept to the trees as much as
possible, speeding swiftly and stealthily northwestward.
"One would think we were thieves," murmured Dick, with an uneasy
English dislike of stealthiness. It was the first time he had in any
way rebelled against Peter's leadership. "All right," the Indian
responded, "go on your way, see how far you get. What you know? What
you see? What you hear? Nothin'. You blind, deaf, sleepy all times.
I see, hear, know. You come with me, or you go alone. But if come
with me, you come quiet. I lead you," he concluded, thrusting his
little dark face with its strange eyes close to Dick's. Thus the
incipient mutiny was crushed.
In all those weeks they had seen and spoken with no one but the
solitary trapper to whom Dick had consigned the letter, and the
absolute loneliness had become as natural to Dick as the splendid
clearness of air was natural. So when one morning in September he came
upon the ashes of a fire that were still warm, it gave him a curious
feeling of wistful excitement. "Look, Peter," he said, "feel here.
The ground is not cold yet under the ashes. Someone was here only a
little while ago!"
Peter snarled something inarticulate, and peered about the fire with a
frowning face. "White man," he grunted uneasily at last.
"How do you know?" asked Dick; and then, not waiting for an answer, "I
should have liked to have spoken to him. I wish we had met him."
"Company's man," grunted Peter, still restless and uneasy. "They bad
people. Not like us here." But Dick was full of his own thoughts, and
scarcely heeded. There was some reason for Peter's uneasiness, for
they were then almost within the vast territories ruled over by the
Hudson Bay Company. And at no time did the great Company prove
friendly to strangers. The Indian had probably, at some crisis in his
chequered career, come in contact with the authority of the said
Company, which thereafter he regarded with superstitious awe and
veneration.
As they went stealthily on their way, and the miles dropped behind with
the vanishing summer, Peter Many-Names became strangely eager and
excited. Dick did not understand the cause of this excitement or of
the haste that accompanied it. But had he possessed the key to that
savage nature, he would have guessed that it was the nearness of the
prairies which so moved the impassive Indian. As the sea to a
coast-bred man, as the mountains to a hillman, so were the prairies to
Peter Many-Names. They had called him north with a voice that, to his
wild fancy, was almost articulate--insistent, not to be mistaken. He
had been born and bred upon the plains, and now he was returning to
them as a tired child runs to its mother, asking only the presence of
that which he loved.
And by the time that the woods about the distant homestead were lighted
with the purple of the tall wild asters, Dick had had his first sight
of the open prairie. In after days he never found words to describe
that sight. Once having reached the goal of his desire, Peter's hurry
seemed in great measure to evaporate. He was content to see the vast
arch of the pale autumn skies above his head, to feel the keen air in
his face, to travel over those limitless earthen billows, interrupted
only by some bluff of aspens or other soft-wood trees, or by the
forest-growth which fringed the courses of the larger rivers. To him,
life offered nothing better.
Two days after they had definitely left the last of the wooded country
behind them, Dick camped in the shelter of a poplar bluff, while Peter
Many-Names went off a day's journey to the east with the intention of
procuring a couple of ponies. "Saw fire-smoke dark when sun rose," he
declared, "and when fires, there wigwams; where wigwams, there Indians;
where Indians, there ponies. You keep close, and I come back soon."
"But you can't buy ponies, for we 've nothing to give in exchange for
them," Dick protested. However, Peter took no notice of him, and
presently departed, leaving Dick to loneliness, and wonder unsatisfied.
He had leisure to wonder as much as he liked. Peter departed
stealthily, leaving him in charge of all their little stores, with only
the slim poplars and his blanket to shield him from the winds that had
now begun to blow very coldly. He had, as has already been written,
leisure to spare, for it was four days before Peter appeared from the
southwest, riding one pony and leading another. They were sturdy
little brown beasts, very shy of Dick, and practically wild. There was
nothing remarkable about them in any way except that they were very
muddy. It was not for some time that Dick discovered that this dried
mud concealed some very conspicuous white spots. Thereupon he wondered
more and more, noticing that there was nothing lacking in the equipment
or among the possessions of the triumphant but always taciturn Peter.
"How did you get them?" he asked. "Did you find friends, or what?
However did you manage to get them?" But Peter only grinned, as he
occasionally condescended to do when much amused, and Dick got no
further answer. There the ponies were, and there Peter evidently
intended they should stay.
To Dick, the beginning of their wanderings across the prairie was as
the beginning of a new world. The sense of vast space was almost
terrifying. Vision was obstructed by nothing, and the great skies
rounded down to the utmost edge of the great undulating plain. They
were now travelling quite slowly, but after a few days--nay, a few
hours--the prairies seemed to close in upon them, to swallow them up in
vastness and silence. Dick, dreamy and impressionable, felt a little
lonely and bewildered, troubled by the mighty width and apparently
limitless expanse surrounding him. But to Peter Many-Names the
prairies were as home-like and familiar as a meadow.
Here, where Dick would see the far skyline broken by the irregular
black mass of a herd of bison, the wheat waves now, mile after mile,
about the countless farms and homesteads. These fertile lands, known
then to few but the Indian and the hunter, have been claimed by
civilisation, and their produce goes to the feeding of the nations.
Agriculture has taken the prairies, and their nomad life is surely
slipping into the past.
To the Indian, these prairies were dear above all things. But they
impressed Dick more with awe than admiration, and he grew to long for
the friendly trees left behind them, and to regard the limitless plain
and the skies arching from the horizon almost as hostile things, with
something menacing in their very splendour. Now also for the first
time he began troubling about the future, and once he put his feelings
into words.
"Where are you going to spend the winter, Peter?" he asked.
"With some tribe of my people," Peter replied carelessly. Of course,
it was the only thing to be done, and in Peter's mind no alternative
was to be considered at all. But Dick felt a doubt as to his own
endurance and toughness compared with the Indian's. He was no
weakling; but he dearly loved his flesh-pots, and, with the prospect
becoming one of hardship and discomfort, he began to think a little
regretfully of the cosy Collinson homestead, now so far away. And
Stephanie! "I wonder what Stephanie's doing, and whether she misses me
much," he thought. "I should like to see her again."
The last of the yellow leaves fell from the poplar bushes, and the
silver foliage of the aspens fluttered to the ground. At night the
stars shone large and frosty, but so intensely dry and bracing was the
air, that Dick did not feel the cold, and Peter Many-Names was of
course inured to any changes of climate. Game became more scarce, and
sometimes they wandered far afield in search of their supplies,
occasionally falling back upon their reserve store of dried meat. But
it was still very enjoyable, and perhaps Peter, who had been an exile
from his native plains for several years, strayed somewhat farther away
from the river-courses and the sheltered lands than he had formerly
intended. But to him the prairies were home; and who would not feel
justified in relaxing caution a little when in his native haunts?
So, for some little time, they wandered about, meeting with few
adventures. Once they passed too close to a cluster of tepees, and
three young braves chased them for miles. The mud had by now scaled
off their ponies, and the curiously shaped white spots were as
remarkable as the speed of the little animals who were distinguished by
these marks. Peter seemed to think that this incident effectually put
a stop to the quest for hospitality in that region, but the difficulty
could be easily overcome.
"We will muddly ponies again, go farther north," he said. And a little
farther north they went, following the trail of a band of Indians.
"Many people go along here two, three days ago," Peter remarked, "we
follow them. If enemies, bad. If friends, good. Come on quick." The
second day after they had struck this trail, the first snow fell. It
was only a couple of inches of delicate, powdery white crystals; and in
an hour or so the clouds had cleared off, and the sky was dazzlingly
fair and blue. But it gave Dick a curious shock to think that the
winter was close upon them. His thoughts turned to the homestead where
he and Stephanie had been received as welcome guests in the time of
sorrow and almost destitution, to that Christmas day when he had, as he
thought, fought and conquered his roving inclinations. How different
had been his intentions! Even in the hour of his greatest delight,
when freedom and the forests had filled his life, he had not been able
to stifle thoughts of Stephanie entirely. And now, when he was a
little tired of wandering, a little lonely, a little anxious, these
returned upon him with double force. Some of the glamour had perhaps
passed from a wild life. And it was a fact, that, however he might
love the wilderness, he could never become an unthinking, unquestioning
part of it, as was Peter Many-Names.
This knowledge brought with it his first feeling of intense shame and
repentance. But he fought against these feelings more stubbornly than
he had ever struggled against his longings for the gipsy-life of the
trapper and the Indian. Indeed, the very awakening of his conscience
and his almost dormant affection for Stephanie made him cling more
obstinately to the wilds. He angrily assured himself that he would not
go back. He had chosen his present deliberately, and the future must
take care of itself. With determination worthy of a better cause, he
faced the prairies and the cold sky, and nothing, he told himself
impatiently, should drive him to forsake that life which was dearer to
him than all. But, now the first dazed rapture and delight were over,
was it dearer than all? That was the point.
The difficulty was increased by the fact that the fall of snow had been
sufficient to cover the slight trail they were following. And now
Peter's caution began to re-appear. A bitter wind had suddenly arisen,
blowing with increasing force, and Peter as suddenly and emphatically
expressed a wish to return by the way they had come.
Dick, for the first time in all their daring journey, flatly refused to
follow the wishes of the Indian. He felt that to turn southward now
would seem like a concession to those softer, better feelings which
filled his heart, and of which he was so anxious to rid himself. If
they turned south now, they might never turn north again. And that one
homestead which held Stephanie represented to him the whole of the
country they had left behind them. He felt that he could never face
the Collinsons, could never endure the humiliation of a return to
civilised life, could never endure the thought that his dreams had led
him astray. "I will go on by myself if you are afraid," he said in a
fury of suddenly aroused stubbornness. "I don't care what happens. I
may freeze or starve or anything, but turn back I will not."
Peter Many-Names shrugged his shoulders uneasily. "So," he said, "you
go on if you will, I come with you. You my brother now, and I cannot
leave you. But it is for true we go into death." And the ponies hung
their heads and shivered restlessly before that steady, unceasing wind
as they proceeded. But Dick kept his face turned obstinately
northward, resolved that he would never yield.
It is written that "the stars in their courses fought against Sisera."
And now the spirit of the wide prairies was to fight against Dick.
That night they found no game. And, by the morning, fine particles of
icy snow gave an edge of steel to that steady, unceasing wind. By
midday the sky was overcast, the wind increased, and the snow became
thicker and thicker.