CHAPTER IX.
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.