CHAPTER IX.
On the Prairie.
In after life Dick never forgot those weeks of wandering. The freedomand beauty of all that summer world was indelibly impressed upon hismemory. His was a nature readily moved to admiration, and had powersof observation unusual in a lad of his age. But there were two smallscenes, each perfect in pictorial beauty, which he afterwardsrecollected with special clearness.
They were tramping steadily along the bottom of a small ravine, onelate July afternoon, through a luxuriance of fern and vine almosttropical. Dick, watching the dark woods ahead, saw a sudden littleflame of colour leap to life against the black stems of the pines--aflame so intense in its ruddy gold that it seemed to throb and pulsatelike a tongue of fire. A sunbeam, slanting through the branches, hadbeen caught and held in the cup of an open red lily--that was all. Butthe effect was one which no artist on earth could have reproduced.
Another time, they were paddling up a small stream in a little canoe ofPeter's building--a little canoe he had hurriedly made, with Dick'shelp, while they camped for the purpose--a flimsy, crank craft, butserviceable, and sufficient for their needs. They were gliding slowlyalong in the shadow of the bank, when they came upon a tall brown cranestanding quietly on one yellow leg in the calm shallows. He did notoffer to move as they slipped past, but stood there peacefully, inwater which reflected the sunset skies and small opalescent cloudsfloating above. Backed by the green rushes, surrounded by the mirroredglow of sunset, he stood and watched them out of sight with wild, sadeyes--untamed, fearless, and alone. And thus he remained always inDick's remembrance.
After a time, they hid the canoe in a tiny creek, and took toland-travelling again. Peter's haste increased, and Dick was sometimeshard put to it to keep up with him. His caution increased also as theyadvanced into more open country--country which gradually grew toforeshadow the prairies. But Peter kept to the trees as much aspossible, speeding swiftly and stealthily northwestward.
"One would think we were thieves," murmured Dick, with an uneasyEnglish dislike of stealthiness. It was the first time he had in anyway rebelled against Peter's leadership. "All right," the Indianresponded, "go on your way, see how far you get. What you know? Whatyou 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 comewith me, you come quiet. I lead you," he concluded, thrusting hislittle dark face with its strange eyes close to Dick's. Thus theincipient mutiny was crushed.
In all those weeks they had seen and spoken with no one but thesolitary trapper to whom Dick had consigned the letter, and theabsolute loneliness had become as natural to Dick as the splendidclearness of air was natural. So when one morning in September he cameupon the ashes of a fire that were still warm, it gave him a curiousfeeling of wistful excitement. "Look, Peter," he said, "feel here.The ground is not cold yet under the ashes. Someone was here only alittle while ago!"
Peter snarled something inarticulate, and peered about the fire with afrowning face. "White man," he grunted uneasily at last.
"How do you know?" asked Dick; and then, not waiting for an answer, "Ishould have liked to have spoken to him. I wish we had met him."
"Company's man," grunted Peter, still restless and uneasy. "They badpeople. Not like us here." But Dick was full of his own thoughts, andscarcely heeded. There was some reason for Peter's uneasiness, forthey were then almost within the vast territories ruled over by theHudson Bay Company. And at no time did the great Company provefriendly to strangers. The Indian had probably, at some crisis in hischequered career, come in contact with the authority of the saidCompany, which thereafter he regarded with superstitious awe andveneration.
As they went stealthily on their way, and the miles dropped behind withthe vanishing summer, Peter Many-Names became strangely eager andexcited. Dick did not understand the cause of this excitement or ofthe haste that accompanied it. But had he possessed the key to thatsavage nature, he would have guessed that it was the nearness of theprairies which so moved the impassive Indian. As the sea to acoast-bred man, as the mountains to a hillman, so were the prairies toPeter Many-Names. They had called him north with a voice that, to hiswild fancy, was almost articulate--insistent, not to be mistaken. Hehad been born and bred upon the plains, and now he was returning tothem as a tired child runs to its mother, asking only the presence ofthat which he loved.
And by the time that the woods about the distant homestead were lightedwith the purple of the tall wild asters, Dick had had his first sightof the open prairie. In after days he never found words to describethat sight. Once having reached the goal of his desire, Peter's hurryseemed in great measure to evaporate. He was content to see the vastarch of the pale autumn skies above his head, to feel the keen air inhis face, to travel over those limitless earthen billows, interruptedonly by some bluff of aspens or other soft-wood trees, or by theforest-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 countrybehind them, Dick camped in the shelter of a poplar bluff, while PeterMany-Names went off a day's journey to the east with the intention ofprocuring a couple of ponies. "Saw fire-smoke dark when sun rose," hedeclared, "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 forthem," Dick protested. However, Peter took no notice of him, andpresently departed, leaving Dick to loneliness, and wonder unsatisfied.
He had leisure to wonder as much as he liked. Peter departedstealthily, leaving him in charge of all their little stores, with onlythe slim poplars and his blanket to shield him from the winds that hadnow begun to blow very coldly. He had, as has already been written,leisure to spare, for it was four days before Peter appeared from thesouthwest, riding one pony and leading another. They were sturdylittle brown beasts, very shy of Dick, and practically wild. There wasnothing remarkable about them in any way except that they were verymuddy. It was not for some time that Dick discovered that this driedmud concealed some very conspicuous white spots. Thereupon he wonderedmore and more, noticing that there was nothing lacking in the equipmentor 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 heoccasionally condescended to do when much amused, and Dick got nofurther answer. There the ponies were, and there Peter evidentlyintended they should stay.
To Dick, the beginning of their wanderings across the prairie was asthe beginning of a new world. The sense of vast space was almostterrifying. Vision was obstructed by nothing, and the great skiesrounded down to the utmost edge of the great undulating plain. Theywere now travelling quite slowly, but after a few days--nay, a fewhours--the prairies seemed to close in upon them, to swallow them up invastness and silence. Dick, dreamy and impressionable, felt a littlelonely and bewildered, troubled by the mighty width and apparentlylimitless expanse surrounding him. But to Peter Many-Names theprairies were as home-like and familiar as a meadow.
Here, where Dick would see the far skyline broken by the irregularblack mass of a herd of bison, the wheat waves now, mile after mile,about the countless farms and homesteads. These fertile lands, knownthen to few but the Indian and the hunter, have been claimed bycivilisation, and their produce goes to the feeding of the nations.Agriculture has taken the prairies, and their nomad life is surelyslipping into the past.
To the Indian, these prairies were dear above all things. But theyimpressed Dick more with awe than admiration, and he grew to long forthe friendly trees left behind them, and to regard the limitless plainand the skies arching from the horizon almost as hostile things, withsomething menacing in their very splendour. Now also for the firsttime he began troubling about the future, and once he put his feelingsinto wor
ds.
"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 alternativewas to be considered at all. But Dick felt a doubt as to his ownendurance and toughness compared with the Indian's. He was noweakling; but he dearly loved his flesh-pots, and, with the prospectbecoming one of hardship and discomfort, he began to think a littleregretfully of the cosy Collinson homestead, now so far away. AndStephanie! "I wonder what Stephanie's doing, and whether she misses memuch," he thought. "I should like to see her again."
The last of the yellow leaves fell from the poplar bushes, and thesilver foliage of the aspens fluttered to the ground. At night thestars shone large and frosty, but so intensely dry and bracing was theair, that Dick did not feel the cold, and Peter Many-Names was ofcourse inured to any changes of climate. Game became more scarce, andsometimes they wandered far afield in search of their supplies,occasionally falling back upon their reserve store of dried meat. Butit was still very enjoyable, and perhaps Peter, who had been an exilefrom his native plains for several years, strayed somewhat farther awayfrom the river-courses and the sheltered lands than he had formerlyintended. But to him the prairies were home; and who would not feeljustified in relaxing caution a little when in his native haunts?
So, for some little time, they wandered about, meeting with fewadventures. Once they passed too close to a cluster of tepees, andthree young braves chased them for miles. The mud had by now scaledoff their ponies, and the curiously shaped white spots were asremarkable as the speed of the little animals who were distinguished bythese marks. Peter seemed to think that this incident effectually puta stop to the quest for hospitality in that region, but the difficultycould be easily overcome.
"We will muddly ponies again, go farther north," he said. And a littlefarther north they went, following the trail of a band of Indians."Many people go along here two, three days ago," Peter remarked, "wefollow them. If enemies, bad. If friends, good. Come on quick." Thesecond day after they had struck this trail, the first snow fell. Itwas only a couple of inches of delicate, powdery white crystals; and inan hour or so the clouds had cleared off, and the sky was dazzlinglyfair and blue. But it gave Dick a curious shock to think that thewinter was close upon them. His thoughts turned to the homestead wherehe and Stephanie had been received as welcome guests in the time ofsorrow and almost destitution, to that Christmas day when he had, as hethought, fought and conquered his roving inclinations. How differenthad been his intentions! Even in the hour of his greatest delight,when freedom and the forests had filled his life, he had not been ableto stifle thoughts of Stephanie entirely. And now, when he was alittle tired of wandering, a little lonely, a little anxious, thesereturned upon him with double force. Some of the glamour had perhapspassed from a wild life. And it was a fact, that, however he mightlove the wilderness, he could never become an unthinking, unquestioningpart of it, as was Peter Many-Names.
This knowledge brought with it his first feeling of intense shame andrepentance. But he fought against these feelings more stubbornly thanhe had ever struggled against his longings for the gipsy-life of thetrapper and the Indian. Indeed, the very awakening of his conscienceand his almost dormant affection for Stephanie made him cling moreobstinately to the wilds. He angrily assured himself that he would notgo back. He had chosen his present deliberately, and the future musttake care of itself. With determination worthy of a better cause, hefaced the prairies and the cold sky, and nothing, he told himselfimpatiently, should drive him to forsake that life which was dearer tohim 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 beensufficient to cover the slight trail they were following. And nowPeter's caution began to re-appear. A bitter wind had suddenly arisen,blowing with increasing force, and Peter as suddenly and emphaticallyexpressed a wish to return by the way they had come.
Dick, for the first time in all their daring journey, flatly refused tofollow the wishes of the Indian. He felt that to turn southward nowwould seem like a concession to those softer, better feelings whichfilled his heart, and of which he was so anxious to rid himself. Ifthey turned south now, they might never turn north again. And that onehomestead which held Stephanie represented to him the whole of thecountry they had left behind them. He felt that he could never facethe Collinsons, could never endure the humiliation of a return tocivilised life, could never endure the thought that his dreams had ledhim astray. "I will go on by myself if you are afraid," he said in afury of suddenly aroused stubbornness. "I don't care what happens. Imay freeze or starve or anything, but turn back I will not."
Peter Many-Names shrugged his shoulders uneasily. "So," he said, "yougo on if you will, I come with you. You my brother now, and I cannotleave you. But it is for true we go into death." And the ponies hungtheir heads and shivered restlessly before that steady, unceasing windas they proceeded. But Dick kept his face turned obstinatelynorthward, 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 oficy snow gave an edge of steel to that steady, unceasing wind. Bymidday the sky was overcast, the wind increased, and the snow becamethicker and thicker.