A couple of revolvers and an American repeating rifle, together with a few other items—all of which had originally formed a portion of the trader’s cargo—were taken from the raft and packed between the two horses. Blankets, a kettle, two tin cups, two axes, extra flints and steels, provisions to last four days—all the requisites, in fact, for prairie travel—were packed in bundles easily attached to the saddles, and everything made ready for a start at daybreak the following morning.
These preparations, together with the arrangements to be made by the party at the cache, occupied the remainder of the afternoon, and soon after dark we all lay down to sleep—the sleep to which our long-borne exertions had so well entitled us.
The dawn of a very fair spring morning saw Red Cloud and myself on the move; nor had its light long to shine ere the raft was bearing the other four down the swift current of the Red Deer river.
From the edge of the ridge where wood and plain met, we looked back to the river bank to catch a last glimpse of our friends. The raft was well in the centre of the stream going merrily along. The keen eyes of its occupants caught quick sight of the horsemen on the sky-line above them; there was a wave of hands, a faint shout of farewell, and then the frail link of sight was broken.
All day we held our southern way at an easy pace.
The horses were all too unused to work, to allow of more than a walk or trot being used; but the calculations of time had been based upon easy going, and there was no necessity for rapid movement.
I have already spoken of the general character of the prairie through which we travelled. Here and there small copsewood studded the face of the great expanse of rolling grass-land; at times, the sheen of a blue lakelet caught the eye; and as the morning sun flashed over the scene, strange glimpses of hill-top, rock, and large trees were visible on the far-away horizon—those tricks of mirage which so frequently deceive the sight of the traveller while the morning and evening beams are slanting along the wilderness.
Pleasant is this every-day life of travel over these great northern prairies, when the spring has come up from his southern home, bringing all his wealth of bird and bud to deck his roadway to the Polar Sea.
How fresh are the cotton-wood thickets where the paired partridges nestle, and roll in the dry scented leaves of last year’s autumn! How sweet are the early flowers that seem to burst all at once from the yellow grass, specking the knolls with pale blue buds, that open to look at the mid-day sun as he passes overhead, and then close again as the evening chills creep over the scene!
Over the ridge-line to the south, long V-shaped lines of wild geese come sailing on their northern way, some trailing behind as though they fain would cry halt along the margins of many of these soft and quiet lakes, whose blue waters spread invitingly below them; but inexorable instinct bids them follow on behind the wide arms of the moving wedge-shape column, into regions where yet the spring is a laggard, but in which man is a total stranger.