Over it for a few nights
the coyotes and grey wolves howled and fought; then would come a fresh
layer of white, and the spot where it had been would merge once more
into the universal colour scheme. Even the prairie chickens vanished,
migrated to southern lands where corn was king. No more at daylight or
at dusk could one hear the whistle of their passing wings, or the
booming of their rallying call. Magnificent in any season, this
impression of the wild was even more pronounced now. The thought of God
is synonymous with immensity; and so being, Deity was here eternally
manifest, ubiquitous. The human mind could not conceive a more infinite
bigness than this gleaming frost-bound waste stretched to the horizon
beneath the blazing winter sun. Magnificent it was beyond the power of
words to describe; but lonely, lonely. Within the tiny cottage, the
girl, Bess, drew the curtains tight over the single window and for days
at a time did not glance without.
Then at last, for to all things there is an end, came spring. Long
before it arrived the Indian knew it was coming, read incontestably its
advance signs. No longer, as the mouse-coloured cayuse bore him over the
range, was there the mellow crunch of snow underfoot. Instead the sound
was crisp and sharp: the crackling of ice where the snow had melted and
frozen again. Distinct upon the record of the bleak prairie page
appeared another sign infallible.
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