Stephens objected to the Cree boys doing the drudgery, but Annette
besought ham so sweetly with her eyes to let "the little scouts" do
it, that he desisted. His glance, as he followed every movement of
the maiden, had as much of mute adoration, reverent and tender, as
ever has been seen in the eyes of a man. How little he had known the
worth of this girl, when he toyed with her hair and put a straw into
her dimples at her father's house! I suppose he regarded her as
thoughtful men regard most girls before they become enslaved either
to their fascination or their gifts. I do not care to write an
ungallant speech, but I do say that I have so far in life looked upon
men much as I do upon women; and I assume every man to be a fool till
he has proven himself otherwise to me.
The sun was setting when the order to saddle was given; and with the
two scouts leading, the party set out along nearly the same route by
which they had come in the morning. A darkness that, without a flight
of imagination, might be called "dense," pressed upon the prairie,
and only a few small and feeble points of star-light were to be seen.
But on a sudden a mellow, green-tinted light burst out of the
northern sky with a brightness that showed the startled expression
upon every face. The horses pricked up their ears, and looked for a
moment at the radiant, quivering, northern sky.
I have not bothered my readers with much description so far, and I
trust that they will forgive me if I pause for a moment to do so now.
After this great, aerial conflagration had continued for the space of
five minutes, the light went out from the whole sky as suddenly and
as entirely as though it were a lamp which some one had extinguished.
After a few seconds of darkness, here and there a long rib of yellow
light appeared; then these disappeared, and once more the party was
in the pitchy dusk. Suddenly, however, fully half the heavens burst
into flame again.
In the south the light was soft, and seemed unconnected with that of
the east and north. The whole would remain for a few seconds
quiescent, save for some slight, erratic pulsations, but all would at
once madly undulate and quiver from end to end. It seemed at such
times like a mighty cloth woven of the finest and softest floss,
being violently shaken at both ends by invisible hands. But the most
curious part of the phenomena was the noise, like the cracking of
innumerable whips, which accompanied the pulsations in the auroral
flame. [Footnote: Captain Huysbe mentions having heard this peculiar
noise during auroral displays in the North-West; and Mr. Charles Mair
and other authorities add their testimony to the same fact.--E. C.]
The corruscations were produced in the valleys, among the bluffs, and
far out over the face of the prairie. To lend terror to the
stupendous and awful beauty of the scene, a ball of fire came out of
the southern sky, passed slowly across the belt of agitated flame,
and disappeared over the crest of a distant hill.