CHAPTER X.
In the Grip of the Storm.
A world of small, whirling, white flakes, rushing, eddying, drifting before a wind that continually shifted from one quarter to another; a cold, grey light filtering through this haze of stinging snow; a continuous, angry murmur, as the icy particles struck the tall, stiff, prairie grasses, sometimes deepening to a roar as the wind momentarily increased; and, in the midst of this unresting, resistless tumult, two dark figures staggering uncertainly northward, leading between them an almost exhausted pony, laden with the last remnants of their food.
For three days, the snow, and the wind, and the great cold had scourged the prairies, and the storm was almost an early blizzard in its wild fury, in the confusion of air-currents and always-falling, never-resting white flakes, tipped with ice, and stinging like fire. And for these three days Dick and Peter Many-Names had gone blindly on their painful way, trusting to the Indian's sense of direction, yet not knowing where they were going. An Indian's bump of locality is a marvellously developed organ; but it is of little use in a blizzard. And now the two lads were staggering forward, with no hope that they were keeping to the right path—one in stoic resignation, the other in a passion of regret and despair. They were almost exhausted, and only kept moving through fear of that snow-sleep from which there is no awakening. Even this fear had now become dulled through cold and weariness.
When the blizzard first struck them, Dick's obstinacy had changed to a very lively realisation of danger. "We will turn back now, if you like," he had said somewhat shamefacedly.
But Peter had given one of his rare, bitter laughs. "All too late," he had said grimly. "Death behind as well as in front—everywhere. P'raps so we go on we find band of Indians that we followed. P'raps we do. All too late go back now, too late." And, with those words in their ears, they had faced the unsheltered prairie and the strength of the storm.
For the first day hope had been left to them, for they could judge their direction from the steady, cutting wind. But, after that, the wind began to shift constantly, and thus their only guide failed them. A prairie is not as bare of all landmarks as a lawn, but one buffalo-wallow is much like another, one poplar-bluff is not distinguishable from the next, and most sloughs have a family likeness to each other, especially when one's circle of vision is limited to a couple of yards' radius, and everything beyond is blotted out with pitiless, hurrying, scurrying clouds of white flakes. Dick was utterly lost. "Where are we? Where are we?" he kept saying. "Is the whole world turning to snow?" And sometimes, angrily, "I know you are going the wrong way, Peter. I know you are." Whereupon he would stumble off by himself, and the Indian would follow and drag him back again.
"No right, no wrong, no anything," Peter exclaimed angrily in answer; "but you must not go round, round, round in circles. That what you doing, an' if you do so, you die pretty quick. You come on with me." And actually they had kept a straighter course than they knew, or than they would have dared to hope, thanks to the Indian's sense of direction.
The first night they passed in the shelter of a large bluff of aspens, and were not very much the worse for it. It was then that they somehow lost one of their ponies through inexcusable carelessness in securing it, and it was after that also that they began to lose hope.
Their food as well as their strength was failing them, and on this third day they were in a very bad case. Dick had, of course, suffered more than the Indian, and plodded forward in a sort of stupor, which threatened to end in fatal unconsciousness at any moment. But even Peter's keen senses were dulled by the cold, and his movements, though little less agile, were more mechanical. His face was grey and pinched, and his hard, grey eyes were very weary also. He seemed leaner and more shrunken than ever. But his mouth was set in grim determination to meet whatever fate might be in store for him with fitting dignity.
At first, Dick's remorse had been passionate. "It's my wretched obstinacy has led us into this, Peter," he said repeatedly; "but sorrow can't do any good now. Nothing can do any good. Oh, what a fool, what a silly, self-willed fool I was! And all my regret is useless! Everything's useless! There's nothing to help us."
"Except Great Spirit," the Indian replied austerely, though Dick, in his despairing mood, scarcely noticed the words, and went on with his vain regrets and repentance.
But now the stealthy hand of the frost was lulling all his hopes and fears and regrets to sleep. As he plodded on beside the staggering pony, he thought only of his previous life, and that without any pain or grief. He vaguely remembered one May morning long ago, before his mother had died, when Stephanie had crowned herself with all the first frail blossoms of the year, and had then danced over the miserable log-hut, brightening it with the spirit of grace and childhood, and sweetening it with the shy fragrance of spring flowers. He had forgotten the little incident entirely, but now he remembered it clearly enough, and idly wondered over it. He suddenly seemed to remember so many things, pleasant little happenings of past years. And his mind dwelt upon them more and more dreamily. More and more slowly he walked, half-forgetting the benumbing ache of cold, the rush and whirl of the surrounding snow.
He was roughly roused from his dangerous dreams. The restless, dancing drifts and eddies of snow seemed to vanish from beneath his feet, and he fell head foremost down a steep bank, some three feet deep, into a little depression of the soil between two high ridges. In spring this was doubtless a slough, haunted by wild-fowl, but now it was dry, and covered with grass, thin and poor, but much relished by the trembling, famished pony. It was sheltered on all sides by the three-foot banks, crested with little straggling bushes, against which the snow had drifted. So cosy did this desolate little valley seem after the roaring tempest without, that Dick grew quite comfortable and drowsy, and would have gone to sleep where he fell. But this Peter would by no means allow. "You wake up," he commanded; "even little child know better than go sleep in snow an' cold. You wake up."
"For pity's sake, let me alone!" Dick pleaded. "Go on if you like and leave me here. I 'm so comfortable."
"'FOR PITY'S SAKE, LET ME ALONE!'
DICK PLEADED. 'GO ON AND LEAVE ME.'"
"Ugh! Yes, you very comfortable, so you stay there that your bones scare the birds away in the spring. That how comfortable you are."
And, roused by this grisly picture, Dick fought off the weariness that was overwhelming him. They huddled in their blankets silently, and ate some pieces of dried and icy deer's meat—ate with despair in their hearts, for this food was their last.
The slight refreshment following the food and rest was almost unwelcome to Dick, bringing with it a keener realisation of the consequences of his wilfulness, and of the desperate strait they were in. When they started again on their hopeless tramp, his thoughts turned to the probable fate that awaited them. Once more he seemed to hear himself say, "Nothing, nothing to help us!" And once more he seemed to hear Peter's solemn answer, at the time unheeded, "Nothing, except Great Spirit." With his whole soul he felt that it was true. He was facing death more nearly than ever in his life before, and he knew it. With the knowledge came the old, instinctive cry, the readiest of all prayers, "God help us!"
But had he deserved such help? He knew that he had not. He was too much confused with bitter cold and exhaustion to feel these things other than vaguely and uncertainly. But as he stumbled on through the swirling haze of white, he gave full sway to those softened thoughts which he had hitherto rejected, seeing his past conduct in a clearer light-the light of repentance. "Before I ask for help," thought poor Dick, "I have need to say, 'God forgive me!' But if we get through this, I 'll do my best to be less selfish, and to think less of my own wishes. Oh, Steenie, Steenie! Indeed, I have need to ask for forgiveness."
Resolves made under such circumstances are not generally worth much. But though that hour might pass, Dick would never again be quite what he was before. Some of his careless selfishness would be wanting, and in its stead would appear a far more manly humility.
For the first time he had dimly realised that no human being can live to himself alone—realised that, even if a man is responsible to no earthly duties of kinship and labour, he is responsible to his Maker. And such realisation could not fail to bear fruit in deeds.
But presently the insidious hand of the frost fell heavily upon them again. Peter's long, savage step became shorter and less sure, and he fell to crooning little snatches of some wild chant under his breath—a brave's death-song, if Dick had known. The pony lagged more and more, and Dick noticed nothing, felt nothing any longer. He was benumbed, mind and body, with the cold. Peter's song blew past his ears on the irregular gusts of wind, but he did not hear. He was back again in those long ago days, and his mother was standing at the door of the cabin, calling, "Stephanie, Stephanie!"
The name was on his blue lips as strength failed, and he fell full length in the snow, while the whirling haze of white, the pony, and Peter Many-Names, slid away to nothingness, and only that voice remained—"Stephanie, Stephanie!"
Peter, partly roused from the lethargy which was creeping over him, tried to lift Dick from the drifts, but was too weak. So he quietly pulled off his own blanket, laid it over the English boy, and then crouched down with his back to the worst of the wind, and waited stoically—waited for death, which was all he looked for. He thought of it quite calmly; but then through all his stormy life the gates of the Happy Hunting-Grounds had never been far away. There was something very pathetic in that little crouching brown figure waiting so gravely and patiently for the end.
The wind blew the snow into little ridges on his long black hair, and then blew it off again. The pony came close to him with drooping head, as if for company; but by then the Indian was too far gone to heed anything, though still he crooned little snatches of his desolate song, as was right and fitting.
Presently he too fell softly sideways into the snow as a tired child falls. His last distinct thought was of the great broad woods through which they had passed, and of the warm summer sun upon the fair, green world.
Just then the pony lifted its lean head, fringed over with the long ragged mane, and pointing its nose to the blast, neighed shrilly, piercingly, as only an Indian pony can neigh. But neither Dick nor Peter Many-Names heard it.
That neigh was answered by a dozen or more. But so strongly blew the irregular winds that only faint echoes of the shrill clamour were to be heard. It proceeded from the very heart of an unusually large bluff of willows upon the bank of a river. There was an open space in the middle of this thick growth of stunted trees, which was occupied by several horses and a cluster of tepees. A band of Indians were very comfortably weathering the unexpected storm in this manner, little more than a few yards distant from the spot where Dick and Peter Many-Names had been overcome.
When the pony neighed, no echo of the sound reached the ears of the people in the tepees; but the loud whinnyings of their own horses at last aroused Man-afraid-of-a-Bear, who had been sleeping the sleep of the just after a full meal, and he therefore went cautiously forth to investigate.
He noticed with satisfaction that the blizzard showed signs of abating, and he also noticed that another pony had been added to their little herd; so he carefully followed that pony's track for a few yards, and came upon Dick and Peter Many-Names. He had looked for something of the kind, being accustomed to the chances of the plains.
The Red Man is hospitable, but suspicious. However, there was nothing about the half-frozen and unconscious pair that might have led Man-afraid-of-a-Bear to suppose that they were enemies. Besides, their advent had added a very fine pony to the wealth of the tribe; so, without much more ado, he dragged them one after the other to the tepees.
His haste was probably their salvation. Heroic and weird remedies were applied to ward off frost-bite, and after a time Peter Many-Names recovered sufficiently to eat a hearty meal.
But it was days before the grip of the frost loosened from Dick's brain. An old woman had taken a queer fancy to the white boy, and she nursed him patiently and fed him well long after the great storm had passed, and long after Peter had begun to do his share of the hunting and other tasks which fell to the men. Day after day passed, and still Dick lay helpless on the pile of skins in the dusky tepee, waited on by the grim, silent old squaw, and knowing nothing of his surroundings. He fancied the Indian woman was Stephanie, and kept calling out to her and begging her to forgive him. "For indeed, Steenie, I 'm sorry," he would cry; "and after this I will be different, dear, and try and make it up to you. I was selfish and did not think, but I loved you all the time. I never forgot you. Forgive me, Stephanie! Stephanie, Stephanie!" And so it went on, until, exhaustion brought quiet.
No one noticed him much or was much interested in him. But Peter Many-Names, after a few weeks, was counted a valuable addition to the tribe; and the pony was the swiftest of the herd.
The days passed, and the prairies lay a vast field of white beneath the radiant blue of the skies. Then the snow blew off the higher mounds and ridges, and only the hollows and sloughs were white. So the season advanced, through all its changes of cold, through all its shifting winds, and brilliant sun and sudden tempest. And still the old squaw tended Dick, filling him with fearful herb-drinks, feeding him nobly, wrapping him close in soft skins. It was a fancy of hers that Death should not have the white boy; and once having become possessed with the idea, she nursed Dick as if he had been her own son, to the wonder of the tribe. And at last her care was rewarded, and the clouds cleared from his brain, though he had little hold on life for a time.
But the days of weakness passed, and with them passed the last shadow of hesitation in Dick's mind. He had had long hours in which to repent and think as he lay in the corner of the smoky tepee—long hours in which to realise the fulness of that mercy which had shielded him in danger and saved him from death. And he went out into the sunshine again, resolved that as soon as he was strong enough to travel he would go back to that life in which his lot had been cast. He would go south, back to the Settlements, to work, and to Stephanie. And the wilds should thereafter call him in vain.