XVIII MIRAGE OF THE PRAIRIE
Early in the New Year, Louis, Neil and Walter set out for the PembinaMountains or the Hare Hills, as that ridge of rough land was sometimescalled. New Year's day, ushered in with the firing of muskets, wasanother occasion for merrymaking and hilarity in the settlement. Indeedthe feasting, dancing, and gaiety had scarcely ceased day or night sinceChristmas. Many a _bois brule_ family had shared their winter supplies sogenerously with their guests that they had almost nothing left and wouldhave to resort to hunting and fishing through the ice. Though they mightstarve before spring, the light-hearted, improvident half-breeds did notgrudge what had been consumed in the festivities. They would do the samething over again at the first opportunity.
The rapid decrease of supplies in the village gave Louis and Neil excusefor a hunting trip, and Walter was ready and eager to go along. At thePembina Mountains they would be sure to find both game and fur animals,Louis asserted. He had been there the winter before and had found goodhunting. On that trip he and his companion had come across an old andempty but snug log cabin that had been built by some hunting or tradingparty. He proposed to return to the old camp and stay several weeks.
Walter was the more ready to go because, on the last day of the old year,he had received word from the Periers that they were getting along allright. The letter, from Elise, was brought by a half-breed who had comefrom St. Boniface to be married on New Year's day to a Pembina girl. Herfather's cough was much better, Elise wrote. He was working at thebuffalo wool factory with Matthieu. Max had been disappointed to findthat Mr. West's school was a good two miles from Sergeant Kolbach's home,too far for the little fellow to go and come in cold weather. "But we areboth of us learning some English without going to school," Elise added.
The cabin was warm, and they had enough to eat, principally pemmican, andfish caught in nets set under the ice in the rivers. "You know I did notlike pemmican," wrote Elise, "but now I am used to it. For Christmas wehad a feast, a piece of fresh venison, and a pudding made with some wheatflour M. Kolbach had saved and with a sauce of melted sugar, the sugarthe Indians make from the sap of the maple tree. Have you eaten any ofthat sugar, Walter? It is the best thing I have tasted since we came tothis new land. You wrote to me that I must tell you if everything heredid not go well. Of course it is not like home in Switzerland. We are notas comfortable or as happy as we were there, and sometimes Max and I arevery lonely and homesick. Father does not complain of the hardships andis always planning what we are going to do when spring comes. We keepwarm, we are well, and we have enough to eat, though we long for breadwith butter, and milk, and cheese. I get the meals and wash and mend ourclothes and keep the house clean. M. Kolbach says it is more comfortablethan before we came. I can't really like M. Kolbach, though I know Iought to, it is so good of him to have us here. He is rather harsh to Maxsometimes, but not to me, and yet I feel a little afraid of him. Isn't itstrange that we can't like people by just trying to, no matter how hardwe try? But I am very grateful to M. Kolbach for taking care of us."
This part of the letter troubled Walter a little, but, reading it over asecond time, he concluded that Elise was merely homesick. Kolbach wasvery likely a rough sort of man, but he must have a kind heart or hewould not do so much for strangers. There was no mention of the youngerbrother. Probably Elise knew nothing of him. Father Dumoulin thoughtFritz Kolbach might not be on very good terms with the Sergeant. Perhapsafter the robbery of the Indian, Fritz had not returned to St. Boniface.Undoubtedly the trader at Pembina had sent an account of that affair toFort Douglas. Kolbach and Murray might not dare to show their facesthere.
The day of their start for the Pembina Mountains, Louis and Walter wereup before dawn. The morning was still and very cold. After packing theirfew supplies and belongings on the toboggan, the boys passed a longrawhide rope, or _shaganappy_, back and forth over the load and throughthe loops of the leather lashing that ran along the edges of the sled.Before the work was done their fingers were aching. They were glad to goback into the cabin for a breakfast of hot pemmican and tea.
As he went out again, Walter paused on the threshold to stare inamazement. The sun was not yet above the horizon, but the whole world hadchanged. He seemed to be standing in the center of a vast bowl. On everyhand the country appeared to curve upward. And the distance was no longerdistant! Groves of bare branched trees, streams, heights of land that heknew to be miles away had moved in around the settlement until theyseemed only a few rods distant. To the west the line of hills,--PembinaMountains,--that he had never glimpsed, even on the clearest day, as morethan a faint blue line on the horizon, loomed up a mighty, flat-toppedridge. Once before, in December, Walter had seen the landscapetransformed, but it was nothing to compare with this. Louis, familiarfrom childhood with the mirage of the prairie, declared he had neverknown such an extraordinary one.
Awed and wondering, the two lads stood gazing about them. Turning to theeast, they watched a spreading ray of crimson light mount the sky fromthe soft, low lying, rose and gold bordered clouds at the horizon. Thesun was coming up. As the horizon clouds reddened and the rim of theglowing disk appeared, an exclamation from his companion caused Walter towheel about.
Louis was pointing at two men and a dog team gliding through theair,--upside down! Every detail was startlingly clear, capotes with hoodspulled up, sashes, buckskin leggings, snowshoes. The driver with the longwhip looked very tall. He belabored his dogs cruelly. It seemed to Walterthat he ought to hear the man's shouts and curses, the howls and whinesof the abused beasts. He could see their tracks in the snow, and a fringeof trees beyond them,--everything inverted as if he himself were standingon his head to watch men and dogs moving across the prairie. As hewatched, the figures grew to gigantic stature, the outlines becameindistinct. They vanished altogether. The sun was above the clouds now.The distance grew hazy. Only part of the chain of hills was visible.Louis turned to Walter, excitement in his voice.
"I think those men go to the mountain too," he said. "Do you know how faraway they are?"
Walter shook his head. He felt quite incapable of estimating distance inthis fantastic world, where things he knew to be miles away were almosthitting him in the face.
"At least fifteen miles," declared Louis impressively.
"Impossible. We couldn't see them so plainly."
"And yet we have seen them. The mirage is always unbelievable."
"What is it anyway, Louis? What causes it?"
The Canadian lad shrugged his shoulders. "The Indians say the spirits ofthe air play tricks to bewilder men and make them wander off the trail toseek things that are not there. Once I asked Father Dumoulin and he saidthe spirits had nothing to do with it. He called it a false effect oflight, but that does not explain it, do you think?"
Again Walter shook his head.
"This I have noticed," Louis went on. "I have never seen the mirage inwinter except at dawn or sunset. In summer I have seen it in the middleof the day when it was very hot and still. But why it comes, winter orsummer, I do not know."
Neil's arrival stirred the others to action. The dogs were harnessed andgood-byes said to Louis' mother and sisters and rather sulky youngerbrother. Raoul wanted to go too, but one of the boys was needed at home.
Fresh and full of spirits, the dogs set off at such a pace that the boyshad all they could do to keep up. When they left the trail and took tothe untracked snow, speed slackened considerably. Louis now went ahead ofthe team, though track breaking was hardly necessary. Underneath an inchor more of dry, loose stuff, almost like sand, the snow was well packedand held up the dogs and sled. The line of hills had vanished, but themirage did not entirely disappear and the landscape resume its naturalappearance until the sun had been up nearly two hours.
The day was cold, much colder than the lads realized at first, for, whenthe start was made and for some time thereafter, there was not a breathof wind. All three wore fur caps and m
ittens, woolen capotes, and thickknit stockings under their moccasins. Walter had possessed none of thesethings when he came to Pembina, but Mrs. Brabant had made him a capotefrom a Hudson Bay blanket and a cap and mittens from a rather well wornbearskin. She had knit warm, new stockings for both boys from yarn boughtat the trading post. A prickling feeling in his nose was Walter's firstwarning that his flesh was freezing. Stooping for a handful of snow, herubbed the prickly spot to restore circulation, and pulled the hood ofhis capote farther around his face.
Their course at first lay to the north of the Pembina River, over flatprairie without an elevation high enough to be called a hill. On thatJanuary morning, the whole plain was a stretch of dazzling white. In thedistance it appeared level, but it was actually made up of rolling snowwaves. It was, Walter thought, like a great lake or sea, the waves ofwhich had suddenly frozen while in motion and turned to snow instead ofice.