Coasting down along the shore-ice we reached the crossing-point, and put out into the mid-river; once on the dangerous part, there was no time to think whether it was safe or not. A Salteaux Indian, dragging the sled, went in, but light and quick as thought he dragged himself from the ice and sped along its yielding surface. Below rumbled the river, and in the open places its dark waters gurgled up and over the crumbling ice. Only a narrow tongue of ice spanned the central current; we crossed it with nothing worse than wet feet and legs, and to me a dislocated thumb, and then we breathed freer on the farther side.
Loading the horses with luggage and provisions, I bade good-bye to my host, and we turned our faces towards the steep north shore. The day was gloriously bright. The hill up which the horses scrambled for a thousand feet was blue with wild anemones; spring was in the earth and in the air. Cerf-vola raced in front, with tail so twisted over his back that it threatened to dislocate his spine in a frantic attempt to get in front of his nose. The earth, bare of snow, gave forth a delicious fragrance, which one drank with infinite delight after the long, long scentless winter; and over the white river below, and the pine forest beyond, summer, dressed in blue sky and golden sunbeam, came moving gently up on the wing of the soft south wind.
We reached the summit. Below lay a long line of frosted river; the little fort, dwarfed by distance, the opposing ridges, the vast solitude, and beyond all, snow-white against the western sky, the peaks and pinnacles of nameless mountains. Through varied prairie and wooded country, and across many a rushing brook, deep hidden in tangled brake and thicket, we held our way on that bright spring afternoon; and evening found us on a bare and lofty ridge, overlooking the valley of the Peace River. Batiste had lived his life in these solitudes, and knew the name of creek and prairie, and the history (for even the wilderness has a history) of each hill or widespread meadow.
The beautiful prairie which lay beneath our camping-place was Chimeroo’s prairie, and the great ridge of rock which frowned above it was also Chimeroo’s; and away there where the cleft appeared in the hills to the north, that was where Chimeroo’s river came out to join the Peace. In fact, Chimeroo played such a conspicuous part in the scenery that one naturally asked, Who was Chimeroo?
“Chimeroo! Oh, he is a Beaver Indian; he lived here for a long time, and he killed the last wood-buffalo in yonder valley, just three years ago.”
The last of his race had wandered down from the banks of the Liard, and Chimeroo had struck his trail, and followed him to the death.
When twilight fell, that peculiar orange light of the American wilderness lay long in the west. Against this vivid colour, Chimeroo’s hill stood out in inky profile the perfect image of a colossal face. Forehead, nose, lips, and chin seemed cut in the huge rock, and, like a monstrous sphinx, looked blankly over the solitude.
“It is the head of Chimeroo,” I said to Batiste; “see, he looks over his dominions.” We were perched upon a bare hill-top, many hundred feet above the river. The face rose between us and the west, some three miles distant; the head, thrown slightly back, seemed to look vacantly out on the waste of night and wilderness, while a long beard (the lower part of the ridge) descended into the darkness. Gradually day drew off his orange curtain from the horizon, and ere the darkness had blotted out the huge features of Chimeroo, we slept upon our lonely hill-top.
Pursuing our journey on the morrow, we descended to the river, and held our way over Chimeroo’s prairie, passing beneath the lofty ridge, whose outline had assumed the image of a human face.
About mid-day we reached the banks of Chimeroo’s river, which, being flooded, we forded, and, climbing its steep north shore, halted for dinner. It would not be easy to exaggerate the beauty of the country through which the trail had carried us, or the sensation of rest which came to one as, looking out over the landscape, the fair spring scene stole insensibly on the mind. Everywhere the blue anemone, like a huge primrose, looked up to the bluer sky; butterflies fluttered in the clear, pure air; partridges drummed in the budding thickets. The birch-trees and willows were putting forth their flowers, precursors of the leaves so soon to follow. The long-hushed rippling of the streams fell on the ear like music heard after lapse of time; and from the blue depths of sky at times fell the cry of the wild goose, as with scarce-moving wing he held his way in long waving w‘s to his summer home. Chimeroo’s prairie was golden with the long grass of the old year. Chimeroo’s hill glistened in the bright sun of the new spring; and winter, driven from the lower earth, had taken refuge in the mountains, where his snow-white flag of surrender floated out from crag and cliff, high above the realm of pines. Such a scene as this, might the first man have beheld when he looked over the virgin earth. It was far too fine a day to work: we would rest. Batiste La Fleur knew of a lake not far off, and we would go to it and spend the evening in hunting beaver and wild ducks; so we put the saddles on and journeyed slowly to Batiste’s paradise.