Part 2 (1/2)

”Ruffed Grouse or 'patridge', as the farmers call them. There's a pair lives nigh aboots here. They come on this bank for the Wintergreen berries.”

And Yan was quick to pull and taste them. He filled his pockets with the aromatic plant--berries and all--and chewed it as he went. While they walked, a faint, far drum-thump fell on their ears. ”What's that?” he exclaimed, ever on the alert. The stranger listened and said:

”That's the bird ye ha' just seen; that's the c.o.c.k Partridge drumming for his mate.”

The Pewee of his early memories became the Phoebe of books. That day his brookside singer became the Song-sparrow; the brown triller, the Veery Thrush. The Trilliums, white and red, the Dogtooth Violet, the Spring-beauty, the Trailing Arbutus--all for the first time got names and became real friends, instead of elusive and beautiful, but depressing mysteries.

The stranger warmed, too, and his rugged features glowed; he saw in Yan one minded like himself, tormented with the knowledge-hunger, as in youth he himself had been; and now it was a priceless privilege to save the boy some of what he had suffered. His grat.i.tude to Yan grew fervid, and Yan--he took in every word; nothing that he heard was forgotten. He was in a dream, for he had found at last the greatest thing on earth--sympathy--broad, intelligent, comprehensive sympathy.

That spring morning was ever after like a new epoch in Yan's mind--not his memory, that was a thing of the past--but in his mind, his living present.

And the strongest, realest thing in it all was, not the rugged stranger with his kind ways, not the new birds and plants, but the smell of the Wintergreen.

Smell's appeal to the memory is far better, stronger, more real than that of any other sense. The Indians know this; many of them, in time, find out the smell that conjures up their happiest hours, and keep it by them in the medicine bag. It is very real and dear to them--that handful of Pine needles, that lump of Rat-musk, or that piece of Spruce gum. It adds the crown of happy memory to their reveries.

And yet this belief is one of the first attacked by silly White-men, who profess to enlighten the Red-man's darkness. They, in their ignorance, denounce it as absurd, while men of science know its simple truth.

Yan did not know that he had stumbled on a secret of the Indian medicine bag. But ever afterward that wonderful day was called back to him, conjured up by his ”medicine,” this simple, natural magic, the smell of the Wintergreen.

He appreciated that morning more than he could tell, and yet he did a characteristic foolish thing, that put him in a wrong light and left him so in the stranger's mind.

It was past noon. They had long lingered; the Stranger spoke of the many things he had at home; then at length said he must be going.

”Weel, good-by, laddie; Ah hope Ah'll see you again.” He held out his hand. Yan shook it warmly; but he was dazed with thinking and with reaction; his diffidence and timidity were strong; he never rose to the stranger's veiled offer. He let him go without even learning his name or address.

When it was too late, Yan awoke to his blunder. He haunted all those woods in hopes of chancing on him there again, but he never did.

VI

Glenyan

Oh! what a song the Wild Geese sang that year! How their trumpet clang went thrilling in his heart, to smite there new and hidden chords that stirred and sang response. Was there ever a n.o.bler bird than that great black-necked Swan, that sings not at his death, but in his flood of life, a song of home and of peace--of stirring deeds and hunting in far-off climes--of hungerings and food, and raging thirsts to meet with cooling drink. A song of wind and marching, a song of bursting green and grinding ice--of Arctic secrets and of hidden ways. A song of a long black marsh, a low red sky, and a sun that never sets.

An Indian jailed for theft bore bravely through the winter, but when the springtime brought the Gander-clang in the black night sky, he started, fell, and had gone to his last, long, hunting home.

Who can tell why Jericho should fall at the trumpet blast?

Who can read or measure the power of the Honker-song?

Oh, what a song the Wild Geese sang that year! And yet, was it a new song? No, the old, old song, but Yan heard it with new ears. He was learning to read its message. He wandered on their trailless track, as often as he could, northward, ever northward, up the river from the town, and up, seeking the loneliest ways and days. The river turned to the east, but a small stream ran into it from the north: up that Yan went through thickening woods and walls that neared each other, on and up until the walls closed to a crack, then widened out into a little dale that was still full of original forest trees. Hemlock, Pine, Birch and Elm of the largest size abounded and spread over the clear brook a continuous shade. Fox vines trailed in the open places, the rarest wild-flowers flourished, Red-squirrels chattered from the trees. In the mud along the brook-side were tracks of c.o.o.n and Mink and other strange fourfoots. And in the trees overhead, the Veery, the Hermit-thrush, or even a Woodthrush sang his sweetly solemn strain, in that golden twilight of the midday forest. Yan did not know them all by name as yet, but he felt their vague charm and mystery. It seemed such a far and lonely place, so unspoiled by man, that Yan persuaded himself that surely he was the first human being to stand there, that it was his by right of discovery, and so he claimed it and named it after its discoverer--Glenyan.

This place became the central thought in his life. He went there at all opportunities, but never dared to tell any one of his discovery.

He longed for a confidant sometimes, he hankered to meet the stranger and take him there, and still he feared that the secret would get out.

This was his little kingdom; the Wild Geese had brought him here, as the Seagulls had brought Columbus to a new world--where he could lead, for brief spells, the woodland life that was his ideal. He was tender enough to weep over the downfall of a lot of fine Elm trees in town, when their field was sold for building purposes, and he used to suffer a sort of hungry regret when old settlers told how plentiful the Deer used to be. But now he had a relief from these sorrows, for surely there was one place where the great trees should stand and grow as in the bright bygone; where the c.o.o.n, the Mink and the Partridge should live and flourish forever. No, indeed, no one else should know of it, for if the secret got out, at least hosts of visitors would come and Glenyan be defiled. No, better that the secret should ”die with him,”

he said. What that meant he did not really know, but he had read the phrase somewhere and he liked the sound of it. Possibly he would reveal it on his deathbed.