Four Indian lads completed the party. This was barely sufficient to pack the horses and make camp, but as Jack had explained to Sir Bryson the best he could get were a poor lot, totally unaccustomed to any discipline, and a larger number of them would only have invited trouble. They must be worked hard, and kept under close subjection to the whites, he said. There were twenty laden horses, and five spare animals.
They climbed the steep high hill behind Fort Cheever and Jack, watching the train wind up before him, thrilled a little with satisfaction under his mask of careless hardihood. Notwithstanding all his preliminary difficulties, it was a businesslike-looking outfit. Besides, it is not given to many young men in their twenties to command a lieutenant-governor.
This was not really a hill, but the river-bank proper. From the top of it the prairie stretched back as far as the eye could reach, green as an emerald sea at this season, and starred with flowers. Here and there in the broad expanse grew coverts of poplar saplings and wolf-willow, making a parklike effect. The well-beaten trail mounted the smooth billows, and dipped into the troughs of the grassy sea like an endless brown ribbon spreading before them.
The progress of such a party is very slow. The laden pack-horses cannot be induced to travel above a slow, slow walk. Twice a day they must be unladen and turned out to forage; then caught and carefully packed again. On the first day a good deal of confusion attended these operations. Little by little Jack brought order out of chaos.
As the pack-train got under way after the first "spell" on the prairie, Jack, not generally so observant of such things, was struck by the look of weariness and pain in Garrod's white face. It was the face of a man whose nerves have reached the point of snapping. Jack did not see as far as that, but: "The old boy's in a bad way," he thought, with a return of his old kindness. After all, as youths, these two had been inseparable.
"I say, wait behind and ride with me," he said to Garrod. "We've scarcely had a chance to say anything to each other."
Garrod's start and the wild roll of his black eyes suggested nothing but terror at the idea, but there was no reasonable excuse he could offer. They rode side by side in the grass at some distance behind the last Indian.
"Do you know," said Jack, "I've never heard a word from home since the night I cleared out five years ago. Tell me everything that's happened."
"That's a large—a large order," stammered Garrod. "So many little things. I forget them. Nothing important. I left Montreal myself soon after you did."
"Why did you never answer my letter?" asked Jack. "You know I had no one to write to but you."