“No, not better to me,” he replied. “For three years, through every change of land and season, through danger and difficulty, through fight and chase, that poor beast bore me—and all only to fall at last by the bullet of my enemy. Well, it adds another name to the list. It will perhaps be longer before it is closed.”
We now reached the place where I had left the horses. They were feeding together almost on the same ground; and without any delay longer than was necessary to get them together, we started for the cache. Although the events of the morning made the time appear an age, the day was yet young. I had dry meat sufficient for both our needs, a lake gave us water; with only a halt of a minute or two we held on until long after nightfall, and when daylight broke next morning the woods were in sight. Bearing away to the east we kept in sight of these woods all day, and at evening drew in towards their shelter, camping once more amid the pleasant leaves of trees, and enjoying a couple of partridges for our supper.
We were at a point considerably below where we had left our party less than three weeks before, but still above the place where the cache was to have been made.
Continuing our course next day, we reached, early in the afternoon, a spot which commanded a long view of the river valley. Far winding between partly wooded banks, it lay for many a mile amid the silent wilderness—the shallows at curves catching the sunlight, the quiet reaches reflecting the clear blue sky.
How calm and tranquil it all looked! The contrast between its peacefulness and the strife I had just witnessed struck me with profound wonder. Here was a bit of the earth as it came from the Creator’s hands, bright with the glow of summer, decked in the dress of leaf and blossom, sweet with the perfume of wild flower, fresh with the breezes of untold distance; and there below the southern horizon, but two days’ riding away, man’s passion, guilt, and greed ruled rampant in the land. According to the directions which the Sioux had given as to the place for the cache to be formed, we must now be near the camp of our comrades.
So indeed it proved. On the edge of the woods we came suddenly upon the Iroquois; he had seen us from a lofty look-out point which he had established on the far side of the river, and had crossed over to meet us and show the way to the camp. It was formed upon an island in the river. There we found Donogh, the scout, and the Cree, all well, and longing for our return. They were amply provided with food; moose were plentiful, they had trapped several young beavers, and smaller game was abundant. We sat late that evening talking over our adventures.
The Indians listened with breathless interest to the story of the capture by the Blackfeet—the pursuit, the fight, and the escape. Donogh was never tired asking questions about my share in the final struggle with the trader. Had he been there to help, he said, McDermott would not have got off so easily.
A week now passed quietly away; the horses wanted rest after their arduous travel; plans had to be made for future movements. It was not likely that we should be left long unmolested in this neighbourhood. If the Sioux was right in the belief that a week or ten days would suffice to cure the injuries which the trader had suffered, then the Blackfeet, the Sircies, or Bloods, would soon beat up our quiet camp. Besides, the life of the wilderness must ever be a life of wandering. The bird seeks the sunlit atmosphere to try his wings; the horseman on the prairie roams because he cannot sit down and call a patch of the earth his home. His home is sky-bound; and when he can no longer wander, his grave is not far off.
Farther to the west there yet lay a vast region, into which we had not entered. At its western extremity rose the pine-clad sides and icy peaks of the Rocky Mountains, whose deep-rent valleys and vast glaciers fed this stream upon which we were now camped, as well as countless other streams and rivers, whose waters eventually seek the far separated seas of Hudson’s Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. To this region of prairie bordering upon mountain we would direct our course, and remain until the autumn must again make us think of winter-quarters.
We had four full months of summer before us; we had horses, arms, and goods; our guns would give us food.