CHAPTER VII
THE BRINK OF CHANGE
The breath of autumn came into the air. The little flowers which had dotted the grassy robe of the rolling hills had long since faded away under the ardent sun, and now there appeared only the denuded stalks of the mulleins and the flaunting banners of the goldenrod. The wild grouse shrank from the edges of the little fields and joined their numbers into general bands, which night and morn crossed the country on sustained and strong-winged flight. The plumage of the young wild turkeys, stalking in droves among the open groves, began to emulate the iridescent splendors of their elders. The marshes above the village became the home of yet more numerous thousands of clamoring wild fowl, and high up against the blue there passed, on the south-bound journey, the harrow of the wild geese, wending their way from North to South across an unknown empire.
A chill came into the waters of the river, so that the bass and pike sought out the deeper pools. The squirrels busily hoarded up supplies of the nuts now ripening. The antlers of the deer and the elk which emerged from the concealing thickets now showed no longer ragged strips of velvet, and their tips were polished in the preliminary fitting for the fall season of love and combat. There came nights when the white frost hung heavy upon all the bending grasses and the broad-leafed plants, a frost which seared the maize leaves and set aflame the foliage of the maples all along the streams, and decked in a hundred flamboyant tones the leaves of the sumach and all the climbing vines.
As all things now presaged the coming winter, so there approached also the time when the little party, so long companions upon the Western trails, must for the first time know division. Du Mesne, making ready for the return trip over the unknown waterways back to the Lakes, as had been determined to be necessary, spoke of it as though the journey were but an affair of every day.
"Make no doubt, Monsieur L'as," said he, "that I shall ascend this river of the Illini and reach Michiganon well before the snows. Once at the mission of the Miamis, or the village at the river Chicaqua, I shall be quite safe for the winter, if I decide not to go farther on. Then, in the spring, I make no doubt, I shall be able to trade our furs at the Straits, if I like not the long run down to the Mountain. Thus, you see, I may be with you again sometime within the following spring."
"I hope it may be so, my friend," replied Law, "for I shall miss you sadly enough."
"'Tis nothing, Monsieur; you will be well occupied. Suppose I take with me Kataikini and Kabayan, perhaps also Tête Gris. That will give us four paddlers for the big canoe, and you will still have left Pierre Noir and Jean, to say nothing of our friends the Illini hereabout, who will be glad enough to make cause with you in case of need. I will leave Wabana for madame, and trust she may prove of service. See to it, pray you, that she observes the offices of the church; for methinks, unless watched, Wabana is disposed to become careless and un-Christianized."
"This I will look to," said Law, smiling.
"Then all is well," resumed Du Mesne, "and my absence will be but a little thing, as we measure it on the trails. You may find a winter alone in the wilderness a bit dull for you, mayhap duller than were it in London, or even in Quebec. Yet 'twill pass, and in time we shall meet again. Perhaps some good father will be wishing to come back with me to set up a mission among the Illini. These good fathers, they so delight in losing fingers, and ears, and noses for the good of the Church—though where the Church be glorified therein I sometimes can not say. Perhaps some leech—mayhap some artisan—"