Mr. and Mrs. Trailey both expressed a wish to ride, so they, too, scrambled aboard. Bert walked behind the wagon a little way, to help Sam to keep a straight course, or one as straight as the gently-swelling prairie would permit. They had previously determined that a blue knob on the distant sky-line was as nearly north as could be judged. The little Cockney fixed his eyes grimly upon it, and forthwith set the jolting geometrical apparatus in motion.
The brush land soon terminated. Suddenly they came out on a sort of shoulder, whence the prairie sloped away to the north and east for an immense distance. A huge region unfolded itself before them. They bumped along, winding round impassable places which every now and again persisted in getting in their way. Esther counted religiously, sometimes in a whisper, sometimes mentally, then, to give herself confidence, right out loud. She regretted missing the beauty of the scene, which from the corner of her eyes she was vividly aware of.
At length she exclaimed. "There—that's it." Sam stopped.
"Go a little farther, Sam," ordered Bert, "to allow for the curves and dips."
The Traileys were utterly silent. Once or twice his excruciating itching almost forced William Trailey to seek relief in outcry, but his wife, noting the symptoms, quickly snubbed him with a look. She was intensely occupied with the study of the neighbourhood. Not being particularly responsive to Nature's masterpieces, not big ones especially, she kept her lips shut tight. A look of derision was in her eyes.
Burned bare of all old vegetation, the ground was as smooth as a recently-mown meadow, and presented no great hindrance to the discovery of their identification mound. For a certainty their land was within a few hundred yards of them. At last they stopped.
Leaving the two older people to their thoughts, and bites, Sam and Bert and Esther gleefully began criss-crossing the prairie, which hereabouts was wide-open and perfectly bald. Within half an hour, the south-east corner post was found, very appropriately by the two lovers.
In one vast sweep the country rolled away in successive undulations until, twenty to thirty miles off, it rose again sharply in a long line of rounded hills. Beyond these the mighty Saskatchewan cut its mile-wide swath. Such was their elevation, and so marvellously clear was the air, that through the depressions in the distant ridge, they saw the long, flat, inky stain where the sky dipped into the dark, silent forests of the north.
In the foreground, below them, were several lakes—genuine ones, this time—set in the pale-green earth like jewels. Patches of fire-killed brush smudged the landscape here and there with sombre blacks and browns.
"Magnificent!" was the general exclamation. They beckoned to the occupants of the wagon, which Trailey, looking very awkward and miserable, then drove across.