It was true. The grass had taken a deeper shade of green with the light falling aslant across it. The sun hung like a yellow ball in a sky of champagne, and the long shadows of our horses and wagon stretched down the slope of the little hill. But most impressive of all was the silence, a silence as of heaven and earth brooding, brooding, brooding over this scene as they had done from the dawn of time; aye, and before that, far into the vague aeons of eternity. . . . I wished that Jean might have been there.
We made our camp on the hill, if we can be said to have made camp at all. Jake found a little slough (pronounced slew) of snow water not far away, and he unharnessed his horses and hobbled them nearby. I was fussing with the tent when he returned.
"We won't need that, son," and I thought there was a note almost of affection in his voice that made me warm to the man. "It couldn't rain to-night on a bet. Clean out the wagon an' you two boys sleep on the floor of it. You get the benefit o' the springs that way, an' it's dryer'n the ground."
"But where will you sleep?"
"Oh, I'll roll up somewhere. I'm an old-timer."
Jake gathered some dry grass and buffalo chips and out of an astonishingly little fire he soon had the tea boiling. Then he fried bacon and laid the strips of hot bacon on slabs of bread. And we ate bacon and bread, and then jam and bread, and drank hot black tea, while the slow twilight settled down about us.
Once, only, Jake startled us by springing to his feet and running to the wagon. He slung his rifle over his arm as we heard a sort of rushing whistle in the darkness overhead.
"No use," he said, laying the weapon down reluctantly. "Wouldn't get one with a carload o' cartridges."
"What was it?" we asked. "We didn't see anything."
"Didn't you? You ain't got prairie eyes yet. Them was wild ducks, goin' north a-hootin'. Wouldn't hit one with a rifle in a million years."