CHAPTER I.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 415, 30 October 1889, Page 3

CHAPTER I.

A long level of dull grey that further away became a faint blue, with here and there, darker patches that looked like water. At times an open space, blackened and burnt in an irregular circle, wibb a shred of newspaper, an old rag or broken can lying in the ashes. Beyond these always a low dark line that seemed to sink into the ground at night and rose again in the morning with the first light, but never otherwise changed its height and distance. A sense of always moving with some indefinite purpose, but of always returning at night to the same place— with the same surroundings, the same people, the same bedclothes, and the same awful black canopy dropped down from above. A chalky taste of dust on the mouth and lips, a gritty sense of earth on the fingers and an all-pervading heat and smell of cattle. This was the 'Great Plains' as they seemed to two children from the hooded depth of an emigrant waggon above the swaying heads of toiling oxen, in the summer of 1852. It had appeared so to them for two weeks, always the same and always without the

least sense to them of wonder or monotony. When they viewed it from the road, walking be3ide the waggon, there was only the team itself added to the unvarying picture. One of the waggons bore on its canvas hood the inscription, in large black letters, • Off to California !' on the other • Root, Hog, or Die,' but neither of them awoke in the minds of the children the faintest idea of playfulness or jocularity. Perhaps it was difficult to connect the serious men, who occasionally walked beside them and soemed to grow more taciturn and depressed as the day wore on, with this past effusive pleasantry. Yet the impressions of the two children differed slightly. The eldest, a boy of eleven, was apparently new to the domestic habits and customs of a life to which the younger, a girl of seven, was evidently native and familiar. The food was coarse and less skilfully prepared than that to which ho had been accustomed. There was a certain freedom and 'roughness in this , intercourse ; a ■ Simplicity that bordered almost on .-rudeness in , their domestic arrangements, and a speech that was' at 'times almost untranslateable to hifaa. He slept in his clothes, wrapped up in blankets; he was conscious that in 'the matter of cleanliness he was left to himself to overcome the difficulties of finding water and towels. But it is doubtful if in his youthfulness it a' ected .him more than a novelty. He ate and slept well, and found his life amusing. Only at times the rudenbss .of his companions, or worse, an indifference that made him feel his dependency upon them, awoke a vague &ense of some wrong that had been dono to him which, while it was voiceles3 to all others, and even uneasily put aside by himself, was still always slumbering in his childish consciousness. To the party he was simply a half orphan put on the train at ' St. Jo ' by some relative of his step-mother, to be delivered to another relative at Sacramento. As his step-mother had not taken leave of him, but had entrusted his departure to the relative with whom ho had been lately living, it was considered as an act of * riddance,' and accepted as such by her party, and even vaguely acquiesced in by the boy himself. What consideration had been offered for his passage he did not know ; ho only remembered that he had been told * to make himself handy.' This he had done cheerfully, if at times with the unskilfulness of a novice, but it was not a peculiar or a menial task in a company where all take part in manual labour, and where existence seemed to him to bear the charm of a prolonged picnic. Neither was he subjected to any difference ot affection or treat ment from Mrs Silsbee, the mother of his little companion, and the wife of the leader of the brain. Prematurely old of ill-health, and harrowed with care", she had no time to waste in discriminating maternal tenderness for her daughter, but treated the children with equal and unbiassed querulousness. The roar waggon croaked, swayed, and rolled on slowly and heavily. The hoofs of the tJraughtoxen occasionally strikingin the dust with a dull report, sent little puffs like smoke on either side of the track. Within, the children were playing • keeping store.' The little gill as an opulont and extravagant customer, was purchasing of tho boy who sat behind a counter improvised from a nail keg and the front seat, most of the available contents of the waggon, either under their own name or an imaginary one as the moment suggested, and paying for them in the easy and liberal currency of dried beans and bit* of paper. Change was given by the expeditious method of tearing the paper into smaller fragments. The diminution of stock was remedied by buying the same article over again under a different name. Nevertheless, in spite of these favourable commercial conditions, the market seemed dull. • I can show you a fin©, quality of sheeting at four cents a yard, double width,' said the boy, rising and leaning on his fingers on the counter as he had aeen the shopmen do. 'All wool iind will wash,' he added with easy gravity.- • I can buy it cheaper at Jackson's,' said the girl with the intuitive duplicity of her bargaining sex. • Very well, 1 said the boy. ' I won't play any more.' 4 Who cares V aaid the girl indifferently. The boy hero promptly upset the counter; he rolled up the blanket which had deceitfully represented the desirable sheeting falling on the waggon floor. It apparently suggested a new idea to the former salesman. • I say ! let's, play " damaged stock." See I'll tumble all the things down here right on top o' the others, and sell 'etn for less than cost." The girl looked up. The suggestion was bold, bad, and momentarily abstractive. But she only said 'No,' apparently from habit, picked up her doll, and the boy clambered to the front of the waggon. The incomplete episode terminated at\>nce with that perfect iorgetfulness, indiffeience, and irresponsibility common to all young animals. If either could have flown away or bounded off finally at that moment, they would have done so with no more concern for preliminary detail than a bird or a squirrel. The waggon rolled steadily on. The boy could see that one of their teamsters had climbed up on the tail-board of the preceding vehicle. The other seemed to be walking in a dusty sleep. ' Kla'uns ' said the girl. The boy without turning hig head responded 'Susy.' ' Wot are ye going to be V said the girl. • GohV to be ?' requested Clarence. 1 When you is growed,' explained Susy. Clarence hesitated. Hia settled determination had been to become a pirate, merciless yet discriminating. But reading in a bethumbed ' Guide to the Plains ' that morning of Fort Laramie and Kit Carson, he had decided upon the career of a ' scout,' as being more accessible and requiring less water. Yet, out of compassion- for Susy's possible ignbranqe, he said neither, and responded with the Americam boy's modest conventionality. * President.' 'It was safe, required rto embarrassing description, and had been approved by benevolent old gentlemen with their hands on his head. 'I'm goin' to be a parson's wife,' said Susy, ' and keep hens, and have things giv' to me. Baby clothes, and apples, and apple sass— and melasses ! and more baby clothes ! and pork when you kill.' She had thrown herself at the bottom of the waggon with her back towards him and her doll in her lap. He could see the curve of her curly head, and beyond her bare dimple knees, which were raised, and over which she was trying to fold the hem of her brief skirt. *1 wouldn't be a President's wife,' she said, presently. • You couldn't !' • Could if I wanted to !' ' Couldn't !' • Could now !' • Couldn't !' •Why?' Finding it difficult to explain his convictions of her ineligibility, Clarence thought it equally crushing not to give any. There was a long silence. It was very hot and dusty. Clarence gazed at the vignette of the track behind them formed by tho hood at tho rear. Presently he ro3e and walked pusfc to her to the tail board. ' Ooin' to get down,' he 6aid, putting his legs over. • Maw cays "No," ' said Susy.

Clarence did nofc reply, bufc dropped to the ground beside the slowly turning wheel. Without quickening his pace, he could easily keep his hand on the tail board. •Kla'une.' He looked up. ' Take me.' She had already clapped on 'her nun bonnet and was standing at the edge of the tail board, her little arm extended in such perfect confidence of being caught that the boy could not resist. He caught her cleverly. They halted a moment and let the lumbering vehicle move away from them as it swayed from side to side as if labouring in a heavy sea. They remained motionless until it had reached nearly a hundred yards, and then with a sudden half real, half assumed, but altogether delightful trepidation, ran forward and caught up with it again. This they repeated two or three times until both themselves and the excitement were exhausted, and they again plodded on hand in hand. Presently Clarence uttered a cry. • My ! Susy— look there !' The rear waggon had once more 'slipped away from them a considerable distance. Between it and them, crossing its track, a moat extraordinary creature had halted. At first glance it seemed a dog— a discomfited, shameless,,- ownerless .outcast of streets and by-ways, rather than an honest astray of some' drover's train. It was go large, so dusty, so greasy, so slouching, and so lazy ! But as they looked at it more intently they saw that the greyish hair of its back had & bristly ridge, and there were great poisonous-looking dark blotches on its flanks, and ' that' the slouch of its haunches was a peculiarity of its figure and not the lowering of fear As it lifted its imperious head towards them they could see that its thin lips, too short to cover its white teeth, were curled in a perpetual sneer. ' Here, doggie !' said Clarence, excitedly. 'Good dog! Come.' Suzy buist into a triumphant laugh. ' Et taint no dog, silly, its er coyote.' Clarence blushed. It wasn't tho first time the pioneer's daughter had shown her superior knowledge. He said quickly to hide his discomfiture, ' I'll ketch him any way, he's nothin' morn a kigi.' IYe kent tho,' said Suzy, shaking her sun bonnet. ' He's faster nor a hosß !' Nevertheless Clarence ran towards htm followed by Su»y. When they had come within twenty feet of him, the lazy creature, without apparently the least effort, took two or three limping bounds to one side and remained the same distance a& before. They repeated this onset three or four times with more or less excitement and hilarity, the animal evading them to one ! side, but never actually retreating before them. Finally, it occurred to them both that although they wore not catching him they were not driving him away. The consequences of that thought wero put into shape by Susy with round-eyed significance. 4 He bites.' Clarence picked up a hard sun-baked clod, and, running forward, threw it at tho coyote. It was a clever shot, and struck him on his slouching haunches. He screamed and gave a short snarling jelp and vanished. Clarence returned with a victorious air to his companion. But she was gazing intently in the opposite direction, and for the first time he discovered that the coyote had been leading them half round a circle. 'Klauns,' says Susy, with a hysterical little laugh. * Well V 1 The waggon's gone.' Clarence started. It was true ! Not only their waggon, but the whole train-oxen and teamsters had utterly disappeared, vanishing as completely as if they had been caught up in u whirlwind or engulfed in the earth. Even the low cloud ofdust that usually marked their distant course by day, was nowhere to bo seen. The long level plain stretched before them to the setting sun, without a sign or trace of moving life or animation. That great blue crystal bowl, filled with dust and fire by day, with stars and darkness by night, which had always eeemod to drop its rim round them everywhere and shut them in, seemed to them to have been lifted to let the traces pass out, and then cloud down upon them for ever.