Over Prairie Trails (19 page)

But we made it. By the time we reached the park that forms the approach to the town from the south, the skies had changed completely. There was now, as far as my eye would reach, just one vast, dark-blue, star-spangled expanse. And the skies twinkled and blazed down upon the earth with a veritable fervour. There was not one of the more familiar stars that did not stand out brightly, even the minor ones which you do not ordinarily see oftener than, maybe, once or twice a year – as, for instance, Vega’s smaller companions in the constellation of the Lyre, or the minor points in the cluster of the Pleiades.

I sometimes think that the mere fact of your being on a narrow bush-road, with the trees looming darkly to both sides, makes the stars seem brighter than they appear from the open fields. I have heard that you can see a star even in daytime from the bottom of a deep mine-pit if it happens to pass overhead. That would seem to make my impression less improbable, perhaps. I know that not often have the stars seemed so much alive to me as they did that night in the park.

And then I came into the town. I stayed about forty-five minutes, fed the horses, had supper myself, and hitched up again.

On leaving town I went for another mile east in the shelter of a fringe of bush; and this bush kept rustling as if a breeze had sprung up. But it was not till I turned north again, on the twenty-mile stretch, that I became conscious of a great change in the atmosphere. There was indeed a slight breeze,
coming from the north, and it felt very moist. Somehow it felt homely and human, this breeze. There was a promise in it, as of a time, not too far distant, when the sap would rise again in the trees and when tender leaflets would begin to stir in delicate buds. So far, however, its more immediate promise probably was snow.

But it did not last, either. A colder breeze sprang up. Between the two there was a distinct lull. And again there arose in the north, far away, at the very end of my seemingly endless road, a cloud-bank. The colder wind that sprang up was gusty; it came in fits and starts, with short lulls in between; it still had that water-laden feeling, but it was now what you would call “damp” rather than “moist” – the way you often feel winter-winds along the shores of great lakes or along sea-coasts. There was a cutting edge to it – it was “raw.” And it had not been blowing very long before low-hanging, dark, and formless cloud-masses began to scud up from the north to the zenith. The northern lights, too, made their appearance again about that time. They formed an arc very far to the south, vaulting up behind my back, beyond the zenith. No streamers in them, no filtered rays and streaks – nothing but a blurred luminosity high above the clouds and – so it seemed – above the atmosphere. The northern lights have moods, like the clouds – moods as varied as theirs – though they do not display them so often nor quite so ostentatiously.

We were nearing the bridge across the infant river. The road from the south slopes down to this bridge in a rather sudden, s-shaped curve, as perhaps the reader remembers. I still had the moonlight from time to time, and whenever one of the clouds floated in front of the crescent, I drove more slowly and more carefully. Now there is a peculiar thing about moonlight on snow. With a fairly well-marked trail on bare
ground, in summertime, a very little of it will suffice to indicate the road, for there are enough rough spots on the best of trails to cast little shadows, and grass and weeds on both sides usually mark the beaten track off still more clearly, even though the road lead north. But the snow forms such an even expanse, and the trail on it is so featureless that these signs are no longer available. The light itself also is too characterless and too white and too nearly of the same quality as the light reflected by the snow to allow of judging distances delicately and accurately. You seem to see nothing but one vast whiteness all around. When you drive east or west, the smooth edges of the tracks will cast sharply defined shadows to the north, but when you drive north or south, even these shadows are absent, and so you must entirely rely on your horses to stay on the trail. I have often observed how easily my own judgment was deluded.

But still I felt so absolutely sure that I should know when I approached the bridge that, perhaps through overconfidence, I was caught napping. There was another fact which I did not take sufficiently into account at the time. I have mentioned that we had had a “soft spell.” In fact, it had been so warm for a day or two that the older snow had completely iced over. Now, much as I thought I was watching out, we were suddenly and quite unexpectedly right on the downward slope before I even realized that we were near it.

As I said, on this slope the trail described a double curve, and it hit the bridge at an angle from the west. The first turn and the behaviour of the horses were what convinced me that I had inadvertently gone too far. If I had stopped the horses at the point where the slope began and then started them downward at a slow walk, we should still have reached the bridge at too great a speed; for the slope had offered the last
big wind from the north a sheer brow, and it was swept clean of new snow, thus exposing the smooth ice underneath; the snow that had drifted from the south, on the other hand, had been thrown beyond the river, on to the lower northern bank; the horses skidded, and the weight of the cutter would have pushed them forward. As it was, they realized the danger themselves; for when we turned the second curve, both of them stiffened their legs and spread their feet in order to break the momentum of the cutter; but in spite of the heavy calks under their shoes they slipped on all fours, hardly able to make the bend on to the bridge.

They had to turn nearly at right angles to their last direction, and the bridge seemed to be one smooth sheet of ice. The moon shone brightly just then; so I saw exactly what happened. As soon as the runners hit the iced-over planks, the cutter swung out sideways; the horses, however, slipping and recovering, managed to make the turn. It was a worthwhile sight to see them strike their calks into the ice and brace themselves against the shock which they clearly expected when the cutter started to skid. The latter swung clear of the bridge – you will remember that the railing on the east-side was broken away – out into space, and came down with a fearful crash, but right side up, on the steep north bank of the river – just at the very moment when the horses reached the deep, loose snow beyond which at least gave them a secure footing. They had gone along the diagonal of the bridge, from the southwest corner, barely clearing the rail, to the northwest corner where the snow had piled in to a depth of from two to five feet on the sloping bank. If the ground where I hit the bank had been bare, the cutter would have splintered to pieces; as it was, the shock of it seemed to jar every bone in my body.

It seemed rather a piece of good luck that the horses bolted; the lines held; they pulled me free of the drift on the bank and plunged out on the road. For a mile or two we had a pretty wild run; and this time there was no doubt about it, either, the horses were thoroughly frightened. They ran till they were exhausted, and there was no holding them; but since I was on a clear road, I did not worry very much. Nevertheless, I was rather badly shaken up myself; and if I had followed the good advice that suggested itself, I should have put in for some time at the very next farm which I passed. The way I see things now, it was anything rather than safe to go on. With horses in the nervous condition in which mine were I could not hope any longer to keep them under control should a further accident happen. But I had never yet given in when I had made up my mind to make the trip, and it was hard to do so for the first time.

As soon as I had the horses sufficiently in hand again, I lighted my lantern, got out on the road, and carefully looked my cutter over. I found that the hardwood lining of both runners was broken at the curve, but the steel shoes were, though slightly bent, still sound. Fortunately the top had been down, otherwise further damage would have been sure to result. I saw no reason to discontinue the drive.

Now after a while – when the nervousness incident upon the shock which I had received subsided – my interest in the shifting skies revived once more, and again I began to watch the clouds. The wind was squally, and the low, black vapour-masses overhead had coalesced into a vast array of very similar but yet distinct groups. There was still a certain amount of light from the moon, but only just enough to show the texture and the grouping of the clouds. Hardly ever had I seen, or at least consciously taken note of, a sky that with its
blackness and its massed multitudes of clouds looked so threatening, so sinister, so much like a battle-array. But way up in the northeast there were two large areas quite suffused with light from the north. They must have been thin cloud-layers in whose upper reaches the northern lights were playing. And these patches of light were like a promise, like a word of peace arresting the battle. Had it not been for these islands of light, I should have felt depressed when I looked back to the road.

We were swinging along as before. I had rested the horses by a walk, and to a casual observer they would have seemed to be none the worse for their fling at running away. But on closer scrutiny they would again have revealed the unmistakable signs of nervous tension. Their ears moved jerkily on the slightest provocation. Still, the road was good and clear, and I had no apprehensions.

Then came the sudden end of the trail. It was right in front of a farm yard. Clearly, the farmer had broken the last part of the road over which I had come. The trail widened out to a large, circus-shaped flat in the drifts. The snow had the ruffled appearance of being thoroughly tramped down by a herd of cattle. On both sides there were trees – wild trees – a-plenty. Brush lined the narrow road gap ahead; but the snow had piled in level with its tops. This had always been rather a bad spot, though the last time I had seen it the snow had settled down to about half the height of the shrubs. I stopped and hesitated for a moment. I knew just where the trail had been. It was about twenty-five feet from the fence of the field to the east. It was now covered under three to four feet of freshly drifted-in snow. The drift seemed to be higher towards the west, where the brush stood higher, too. So I decided to stay as nearly as I could above the old trail. There, even
though we might break through the new snow, the older drifts underneath were likely to be firm enough.

We went ahead. The drift held, and slowly we climbed to its summit. It is a strange coincidence that just then I should have glanced up at the sky. I saw a huge, black cloud-mass elbowing its way, as it were, in front of those islands of light, the promise of peace. And so much was I by this time imbued with the moods of the skies that the disappearance of this mild glimmer sent a regret through my very body. And simultaneously with this thrill of regret there came – I remember this as distinctly as if it had been an hour ago – the certainty of impending disaster. The very next moment chaos reigned. The horses broke in, not badly at all; but as a consequence of their nervous condition they flew into a panic. I held them tight as they started to plunge. But there was no guiding them; they were bound to have things their own way altogether. It seemed as if they had lost their road-sense, too, for instead of plunging at least straight ahead, out on the level trail, they made, with irresistible bounds and without paying the slightest attention to the pull of the lines, towards the east. There the drift, not being packed by any previous traffic, went entirely to pieces under their feet. I had meanwhile thrown off my robes, determined at all costs to bring them to a stop, for I knew, if I allowed them to get away with me this time, they would be spoiled for any further drives of mine.

Now just the very fraction of a second when I got my feet up against the dashboard so as to throw my whole weight into my pull, they reared up as if for one tremendous and supreme bound, and simultaneously I saw a fence post straight under the cutter pole. Before I quite realized it, the horses had already cleared the fence. I expected the collision, the breaking of the drawbar and the bolting of the horses; but just then
my desperate effort in holding them told, and dancing and fretting they stood. Then, in a flash, I mentally saw and understood the whole situation. The runners of the cutter, still held up by the snow of the drift which sloped down into the field and which the horses had churned into slabs and clods, had struck the fence wire and, lifting the whole of the conveyance, had placed me, cutter and all, balanced for a moment to a nicety, on top of the post. But already we began to settle back.

I felt that I could not delay, for a moment later the runners would slip off the wire and the cutter fall backward; that was the certain signal for the horses to bolt. The very paradoxicality of the situation seemed to give me a clue. I clicked my tongue and, holding the horses back with my last ounce of strength, made them slowly dance forward and pull me over the fence. In a moment I realized that I had made a mistake. A quick pull would have jerked me clear of the post. As it was, it slowly grated along the bottom of the box; then the cutter tilted forward, and when the runners slipped off the wire, the cutter with myself pitched back with a frightful knock against the post. The back panel of the box still shows the splintered tear that fence post made. The shock of it threw me forward, for a second I lost all purchase on the lines, and again the horses went off in a panic. It was quite dark now, for the clouds were thickening in the sky. While I attended to the horses, I reflected that probably something had broken back there in the cutter, but worst of all, I realized that this incident, for the time being at least, had completely broken my nerve. As soon as I had brought the horses to a stop, I turned in the knee-deep snow of the field and made for the fence.

Half a mile ahead there gleamed a light. I had, of course, to stay on the field, and I drove along, slowly and carefully,
skirting the fence and watching it as closely as what light there was permitted.