After Luncheon We Set Out For The Highest Point On The Dividing Ridge
About A Mile Above The Cabin, And Sauntered And Gazed Until Sundown,
Admiring The Vast Expanse Of Open Rolling Prairie-Like Highlands
Dotted With Groves And Lakes, The Fountain-Heads Of Countless Cool,
Glad Streams.
Le Claire's simple, childlike love of nature, preserved undimmed
through a hard wilderness life, was delightful to see.
The grand
landscapes with their lakes and streams, plants and animals, all were
dear to him. In particular he was fond of the birds that nested near
his cabin, watched the young, and in stormy weather helped their
parents to feed and shelter them. Some species were so confiding they
learned to perch on his shoulders and take crumbs from his hand.
A little before sunset snow began to fly, driven by a cold wind, and
by the time we reached the cabin, though we had not far to go,
everything looked wintry. At half-past nine we ate supper, while a
good fire crackled cheerily in the ingle and a wintry wind blew hard.
The little log cabin was only ten feet long, eight wide, and just
high enough under the roof peak to allow one to stand upright. The
bedstead was not wide enough for two, so Le Claire spread the
blankets on the floor, and we gladly lay down after our long, happy
walk, our heads under the bedstead, our feet against the opposite
wall, and though comfortably tired, it was long ere we fell asleep,
for Le Claire, finding me a good listener, told many stories of his
adventurous life with Indians, bears and wolves, snow and hunger,
and of his many camps in the Canadian woods, hidden like the nests
and dens of wild animals; stories that have a singular interest to
everybody, for they awaken inherited memories of the lang, lang syne
when we were all wild. He had nine children, he told me, the youngest
eight years of age, and several of his daughters were married. His
home was in Victoria.
Next morning was cloudy and windy, snowy and cold, dreary December
weather in August, and I gladly ran out to see what I might learn. A
gray ragged-edged cloud capped the top of the divide, its snowy
fringes drawn out by the wind. The flowers, though most of them were
buried or partly so, were to some extent recognizable, the bluebells
bent over, shining like eyes through the snow, and the gentians, too,
with their corollas twisted shut; cassiope I could recognize under
any disguise; and two species of dwarf willow with their seeds
already ripe, one with comparatively small leaves, were growing in
mere cracks and crevices of rock-ledges where the dry snow could not
lie. Snowbirds and ptarmigan were flying briskly in the cold wind,
and on the edge of a grove I saw a spruce from which a bear had
stripped large sections of bark for food.
About nine o'clock the clouds lifted and I enjoyed another wide view
from the summit of the ridge of the vast grassy fountain region with
smooth rolling features.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 42 of 163
Words from 21872 to 22395
of 85542
