Springtime on the prairies of South Dakota. It is early morning, the sun is not yet up, but all is light and even and soft and all-surrounding, so that there are no shadows. In every direction the gently rolling country is dotted brown and white from the incomplete melting of winter’s snows. In the low places tiny streams of snow-water, melted yesterday, sing low under the lattice-work blanket the frost has built in the night. Nearby and in the distance prairie-chickens are calling, lonely, uncertain. Wild ducks in confused masses, mere specks in the distance, follow low over the winding curves of the river. High overhead, flocks of geese in regular black wedges, and brant, are flying northward, and the breezy sound of flapping wings and of voices calling, mingle in the sweetest of all music to those who know the prairies––Nature’s morning song of springtime. 88
“What a country! Look there!” The big man in the front seat of the rough, low wagon pointed east where the sun rose slowly from the lap of the prairie. The other men cleared their throats as if to speak, but said nothing.
“And I’ve lived sixty years without knowing,” continued the first voice, musingly.
“I’ve never been West before, either,” admitted De Young, simply.
They drove on, the trickling of snow-water sounding around the wagon wheels.
The third man, Clark, pointed back in the direction they had come.
“Did any one back there inquire what we were doing?” he asked.
“A fellow ‘lowed,’ with a rising inflection, that we were hunting ducks,” said De Young. “I temporized; made him forget that I hadn’t answered. You know what will happen once the curiosity of the natives is aroused.”
“I wasn’t approached,” Morris joined in, without turning. The corners of the big man’s mouth twitched, as the suggested picture formed swiftly in his mind.