All was completed early on the morning of the second day, and quitting our high camp, we began to descend the valley in a western direction. We soon came in sight of the low country upon that side. It was different in every aspect to the prairie region of the east. There the green meadows had spread out into measureless distance, here ridge after ridge of pine-trees stretched away into the west. Many a rugged range of mountain rose amid the wilderness of pines, and bold summits of naked rock, or snow patch glistened, above the sombre world of endless forest.
Winding along a descending trail we often lost sight of this panorama, as some projecting ridge of our mountain closed the outward view.
By sunset we had reached a spot where the trail forked—one branch descending still westward towards the mining camp on the Fraser river, the other bearing away in a northern direction.
Here we camped. We had come down many hundreds of feet during the day. The forest growth was large and lofty, and the pine grouse and the partridges were again around us. Far down in the plain a light haze of smoke hung above the tree tops.
On the next morning we were to separate. The Iroquois and the scout would accompany me to the first mining camp, from whence they would recross the mountains to their own peoples. Red Cloud would take the northern trail to the Athabasca valley. The preparations were soon ready, but we delayed the moment of parting to the last. At length Red Cloud rose, and began to unfasten his horse from the tree to which it had been tied. It was the signal of separation.
We shook hands in silence.
“See,” he said, “the smoke of your people’s fires far below; there is your road, and here is mine”—he pointed to the mountain trail. “I could not go with you, I would have to begin life again;—I am too old to change now. There is no one to come after me. The Sioux are nearly all gone, the Buffalo are fast going; but the wilderness will last long enough for me.”
“And is there nothing then that I can do for you?” I said. “You have done everything for me: let me do something in return.”
“Well, my friend,” he replied, “sometimes think of me. When I am camped at night far out on the great prairie, I would like to say to myself, my white brother remembers me. That is all.”
Then he turned off to the north, leading his horse by the bridle up the mountain path. I stood watching him as step by step the void of space grew wider between us. How lonely it all seemed, this solitary man turning off into the mountains to go back from the shore of civilization into the great prairie sea! As thus I watched his slowly receding figure, memory was travelling back over the long trail of our companionship—back through all the varied scenes of strife, and chase, and travel, to that distant day when first on the shore of the wilderness our lives came together. “Think of you!” I said, speaking half aloud my thoughts. “Yes, that I will. Whenever the wind stirs the tree-branch, or rustles the reeds and meadows—wherever the sun goes down over distance of sea or land—in the moonlight of nights, in the snow of long winters, you will be near me still.”