Memory is at
times the birth-hour of prophecy, but here memory clothes the present with
pain and loss, and for them prophecy died yesterday and the despair of a
to-morrow writes its gloomy headlines upon every advance step of their
journey. But the Indian will face it. He always faces death as though it
were a plaything of the hour. The winds on these prairies always travel
on swift wing--they are never still--they are full of spectral voices. The
chiefs have left the council lodge, they have said farewell, their days of
triumph are behind them. Thoughts that burn the brain held the weary
pilgrims.

[Facing the Sunset]

Facing the Sunset

One refreshing thought is now flung at them: their days of journeying have
brought them within sight of water--water without which there is no life.
That long green fringe winding under the brow of the distant hills means
tree growth. The Indian loves the brotherhood of trees. Trees grow in
that desolate landscape only on the borders of streams. Toward the water
and welcome shade they hasten. Tired beast and tired man lave in the
lifegiving flood. The horses wade in it as though the snows had melted
and run thither to caress and refresh them. Oh, the exhilaration of
water! On the margin of the far banks the camp is made for the night.
There is witchery in a Western night. Myriads upon myriads of low-hung
stars, brilliant, large and lustrous, bend to warm the soul and light the
trail. Under these night lamps, amid the speech of leaves and the rush of
the river, they bivouac for their last night, bending under the weight of
thoughts too deep for tears. In the haze of a broken sleep they wrought
out again the sorrows of their troubled record. When the morning broke
through the dull gray of the eastern sky rim, he would be a heartless
surgeon of emotions who attempted to probe the pathos of their thoughts,
and a dull and vulgar rhetorician who should attempt to parse the
fathomless sorrow of their speech.

In the hush of the new morning they mounted, and set forth upon their
journey over the Great Divide. All Nature seemed conscious of the burden
weighing to the earth every Indian thought, and trailing in the dust every
hope of the race. The birds remembered not to sing--the prairie dogs
ceased their almost continual and rasping chatter. The very horses seemed
to loiter and fear the weary miles of their final