Annette sat upon her blanket, and heard no sound save the breaking of the gra.s.s and the grinding of the horses" teeth, as the hungry beasts fed. Her heart was not in the wood; it was away with her lover, and once more her blood tingled, and a delicious sensation made her heart warm as the words which he spoke when they rode together pa.s.sed through her brain.
"Oh, what nice verses he made about my eyes and ears, and my skin.
Ah, if he were only playing with me." An arrow now quivered for a moment in her heart. "But no; he has the two ways--he can be playful, and say all manner of teazing things; but, oh, he can be sincere. He never could have spoken in such a tone, with such a light in his eyes, with such an expression in his face, if all had not come from the bottom of his heart. And he will take me away, away out to the far east, where white men dwell, and put into some great mansion, and make me its mistress. Oh, it will be all so sweet. But the dearest part of all is that he will love me, and me alone. How proud I shall be that no other girl can say, that his heart is hers.
"Ah, Annette, just for your sweet sake, I trust that the future over which your heart now gloats will fit itself to such a dream. I think, somehow, that it will; for he seems true, and, darling, you are worthy. But you know it does not always happen in the way that you have fashioned it in your dear head. Some other girl _does_ sometimes come with sly, soft feet and steal away hearts from trusting and adoring wives, and they have no remorse either in doing the cruel deed. Indeed, believe me, I have known them in their heart to glory that they had done this thing. You will, therefore, have to take your chance."
While Annette was in the midst of her reverie, her round dimpled cheek resting on her hands, one of the horses tossed his head and whinnied. "Julie, awake," she cried, quickly touching the sleeping girl; and then seizing her pistol took position behind a tree, whispering Julie to join her there. And as that frightened maiden hurried out from her warm nest, a voice came through the poplars saying,
"Fear not, Little Poplar comes."
"It is _his_ voice, Mademoiselle," and immediately the sleep flew out of Julie"s eyes, and left them luminous as the stars shining beyond the tree-tops.
"The chief is welcome," Annette replied; and Julie was upon her feet making a little voyage now in this direction, and now in that, in the endeavour to find him. All the while she kept saying, "This way! this way!" but in a tone so low that he could not have heard her at a distance of ten lengths of this small maiden. At last his tall, straight figure, resembling in very truth a little poplar, was seen moving towards the tent; and with a shy run Julie was at his side.
"I followed the four braves who were bent on your capture, and saw the affair in the swamp. When you rode away, one whom I supposed dead, arose and joined with another whose leg I had thought was broken in getting out the horses. One brave was really dead, and he has by this time sunk in the bog. A fourth had a broken arm, and he went away with the other two. They will not pursue again, so you may sleep in peace till the rise of sun. I shall put my blanket here.
Should one approach, the ears of Little Poplar are as keen while the spirit of sleep hovers over him as while he is awake."
Julie"s dreams were very happy that night.
On the morrow Little Poplar informed them that his heart was not now as much with the white people as it had been some little time ago. He was aware that the braves were for the most part unreasonable, and that they were easily led into wrong as well as to right doing.
"They have, I admit, committed some excesses; but it never can be forgotten that strangers have taken possession of their hunting grounds, and that, if they have no subst.i.tute to offer, the red children of the plains must die. My tongue could not tell, mademoiselle, nor your brain conceive, the sufferings that I have seen among our people in the long bitter winters, with only the snow for wrappers, and pieces of dried skins for food. Will the white man die of hunger while food is within his reach? No, he will beg it first, and then he will take by violence; but I have seen the young maiden and the withered crone gasp their last breath away upon the snow, while ranches teeming with cattle lay not an hour"s march away.
"If an Indian, with a wife, and a lodge full of children dying on a bitter winter"s day of hunger, turn a calf from some nigh herd of white man"s cattle, alarming tidings fly to the east, and white men and women learn, in their sumptuous houses, that the Indians do naught but plunder. But they would have no need, I repeat, to lay hands upon the ranchers" cattle if the white man had not come and stripped them of their boundless heritage, and put them upon reservations where a buffalo may never come. [Footnote: The words in the mouth of this chief are not exaggerations, and it is G.o.d"s own truth that during late winters dozen after dozen of Indians, men and women and children, perished in the snow after they had devoured the skins that covered them. Yet these poor people are said to be under "the paternal care of Government." Alas, our public men are only concerned in playing their wretched political game, and they sit intriguing, while the helpless creatures committed to their care perish like dogs, of hunger, in their lodges.--E.C.]
"And some of the soldiers who have come here from the east are more bent on earning reputation than on making peace. Some of their leaders do not want the cheap glory of "killing a lot of Indians;"
and I have with my own ears heard one of the Ontario magistrates, Col. Denison, declare that he did next come here to kill, but to prevent killing. If military affairs were now to be given into the hands of some men like him it would prove better for all concerned.
"But there is another officer, Major Beaver, who has made amazing marches; his men, in fact, have travelled like March hares. But give me a bluff, and fifty braves, and not one of all his rash and rushing followers will get back again to Ontario to boast of their deeds of daring.
"Some of our men have been guilty of excesses, but Government gave them its solemn pledge that if they returned to their reserves no harm should come to them. All of my braves have gone back, because I gave them the a.s.surance that some of the officers gave to me. Yet, if I mistake not, Major Beaver is at this moment planning an attack upon us. His young men want to kill a few Indians, provided the thing can be done without any risk; and then they will be described as great heroes in the newspapers. They would fare very badly if they had to return without having "a brush," as the more war-like of them have put it, in the hearing of some of my friends."
"Yes, mon chef," Annette replied, "but you say that Colonel Denison and others advocate a healing of the present sores, and pacific measures. Then there are others who have always sympathized with the Indian, like Mr. Mair. Mon pere tells me that he has been for some time engaged on a beautiful poem, intended to show the injustice that has been heaped upon the children of the plains. With good counsels like these, surely no outrage will be done unto your people."
"And now, where do the two brave scouts purpose going?" the chief enquired, as they came in sight of a small settlement nestling around the edge of a coil in the Saskatchewan.
Annette was going to see her aunt, and Julie was coming with her.
They would remain there for a day or two to rest, and then they would go wherever their services were needed most.
"Oh! not to mademoiselle"s aunt"s. Le grand chef and his followers have twice been there looking for the scouts, and he has spies among the neutral braves who would speedily bring him the news of your arrival."
"Then, what would the chief advise? Our hampers are exhausted now, and we must replenish them."
The chief would go after the gopher had sought his burrow, and fetch all that the maidens needed. Beyond a wooded knoll, plain to the view, was a lake, and in the wood skirting the water would be a suitable camping ground. The chief advised the maidens to ride thither, as they must now be tired and hungry; he would fetch them the provisions and other things needed when the stars came out.
Annette then scribbled a note to her aunt, and mentioned those little things that she needed. She would some day show her grat.i.tude to sa tante for her kindness, and "made" her love and duties as girls of her race do with such grace. And the chief was away.
"Is Julie very tired?"
"Pas beaucoup, mademoiselle. If you want not to pitch tent now, I should be well able to ride for a couple of hours yet."
"I want to hear what tidings there may be of Captain Stephens, Julie," and her voice trembled a little. "I do not think that the braves who go in and out of the village can all be hostile. Those who are up to mischief have their paint on."
Turning their horses towards the village, they perceived two braves riding towards them.
"I think I know one of these, Julie. Is not the taller one he who brought us the proclamation of le grand chef?"
"Oh, yes; the very one. How quick ma maitresse is in remembering persons." The Indian rode rapidly towards the two little scouts, and as he drew near he raised his hand.
"It is not safe down here," he said, in Cree, "for the scouts. A runner from the Stonies saw you both, and Little Poplar with you, this morning, and swiftly carried the news. It is likely that le grand chef knows of it before this. Little Poplar, who is now disguised as a medicine man, is yonder in the valley, and he charged me to come and warn the two scouts, his friends, to follow out the instructions that he gave them without any delay. He has got some tidings, too, about Stephens, le capitaine. Not good tidings, I think; a brave saw several of le chef"s men steal after him down the Valley of the Snakes."
A short cry escaped from Annette"s lips, and the blood shrunk chilled to her heart.
"Are there any tidings of a capture?"
"No; perhaps le capitaine escaped. Upon clear ground the white men"s horses could easily outdistance the braves, who, it is said, were not mounted."
Unsatisfactory as this intelligence was, it left room to hope. But the beauty of the silvery lake, with its fringe of berried bushes; the scolding of the kingfisher as he gadded from one riven tree to another; the goblin laughter [Footnote: I borrow this most expressive phrase from my friend, Prof. Roberts, as vividly descriptive of the cry of the loon. John Burroughs applies the epithet "whinny," which is good; but it misses the sense of supernatural terror with which, to me, the cry of this bird in the moonlight is always a.s.sociated.]
of the stately loon, as he held his way across the wide stretch of shining, richly tinted water, might all as well have never been; for Annette saw them not. Julie was busy trying to cheer her.
"Be not down at heart, sweet my mistress. These territories are now invested by numerous soldiers from the East, and tidings of this capture, if such there has been, would speedily reach them. Throw away your care, and rest to-night. With the sun we shall rise to-morrow, ourselves restored, our horses fresh, and ascertain the facts.
Inspector d.i.c.ken will know; and him we can reach in a two hours"
ride."
"Sweet girl, in the hour of pain you always can give me consolation.
Indians have also skulked after us; and it may be that the braves were only watching whither Captain Stephens went."
"My view precisely, mademoiselle; but we shall talk no more about it now. Sit beside me here upon the bank, and look at the peace and the beauty of all this scene." Under the shadow of the bank, with its matted growth of trees, the water was a pure myrtle green; midway in the expanse it was purple, and beyond, in the last faint light of the sun, it was an exquisite violet. The sand at their feet alternated in veins of umber brown, and ashes of roses; while the vermillion of the rowan berries made a vivid and gorgeous contrast to the glaucous green of the leaf.a.ge.
Little ripples came upon the bright, pink sand that fringed the unvarying tide-mark.
"What causes the ripple now, Julie, when no breath of wind is in the heavens, and neither oar nor paddle is on the lake?"
"Stay; I thought that I heard it a moment ago! Yes, I hear it again.
Hear you not the note of some waterfowl?"
Yes, Annette did hear it; but she could not say from what kind of bird the singing came.
"Well, my sweet mistress, the ripples which you now see swinging in upon the sand come from the same bird whose song you hear. The bird itself is the swan, made sacred to love."
"Oh, I remember something of the legend, Julie. Repeat it to me, s"il vous plait."
"Well; there was once a beautiful maiden of the plains, whom many of the bravest and most n.o.ble of the chiefs adored; but she disdained their wooing, for she loved with a pa.s.sion that absorbed her soul and body a young man with hair like the corn leaves when, after rain, the sunlight is shot through the stalks. He stayed some days in the lodge of the chief, her father; and while his heart was yet full of love for the peach-skinned, star-eyed maiden, he was obliged to go away with his white brethren, who had come from over seas to trace the source and flow of some of our mighty rivers. The parting of the lovers was like the breaking of heart-strings. The maiden pined, and through all the summer sat among the flowers sighing for her darling with the amber-tinted hair. Her sleep refreshed her not, for through the night she dreamt of naught but the parting, and of the sorrow in his sky-blue eyes. In the day, her eyes were ever looking wistfully along the trail by which he had come, or gazing, with a woe past skill to describe, out along the stretch by which he had gone from her sight. Late in the autumn, when the petals of the rose and the daisy began to fall, and summer birds prepared for the flight to the south, the Great Spirit came softly down from a c.u.mulus cloud and stood beside the maiden, as she sat upon the fading prairie. He told her of a glorious land out in the heavens, where spring endured for ever, and true lovers were joined to have no more parting; and when she looked yearningly towards the region at which he pointed, he asked her if she would go thither with him. With joy unutterable she consented, and giving her hand into his, the two rose in the air and disappeared through a piled ma.s.s of rosy cloud. When she reached paradise, knowledge was given to her of the loves of maidens upon the earth, and reflecting how bitter her lot had been, she besought the G.o.d of Thunder, and the Ruler of the Spheres, to permit her to pa.s.s a portion of each year upon the earth, in order to watch over and console love-sick virgins who were separated from their betrothed. To her request the G.o.d consented, giving to the maiden the figure of a swan. Since that time she visits the earth a short time after midsummer day; and you can hear her singing upon our great inland waters during the night, at any place between the lonesome stretches of the far north to the great southern lakes, from the middle of summer till the first golden gleam comes in the maple leaf. Then she arises, and the hunter marvels at the beautiful bird with the white pinions which flies up into the heavens, and pa.s.ses beyond the highest clouds."
"Harken now, mademoiselle; it sings again." And lo! from over the hushed face of the water came the notes of the guardian maiden.
"The song is not plaintive and sorrow-laden, as I have been told the swan"s song is, Julie."
"No; the singing of the swan soothes and consoles. Hark again to it."