The sun was hanging low in the clear blue over the prairie, as two
riders hurried their ponies along a blind trail toward a distant
range of purple hills that lay like sleepy watchers along the banks
of the Red River.
The beasts must have ridden far, for their flanks were white with
foam, and their riders were splashed with froth and mud, "The day is nearly done, mon ami," said one, stretching out his arm
and measuring the height of the sun from the horizon. "How red it is;
and mark these blood-stains upon its face! It gives warning to the
tyrants who oppress these fair plains; but they cannot read the
signs."
There was not a motion anywhere in all the heavens, and the only
sound that broke the stillness was the dull trample of the ponies'
hoofs upon the sod. On either side was the wide level prairie,
covered with thick, tall grass, through which blazed the purple,
crimson and garnet blooms, of vetch and wild pease. The tiger lily,
too, rose here and there like a sturdy queen of beauty with its great
terra cotta petals, specked with umber-brown. Here and there, also,
upon the mellow level, stood a clump of poplars or white oaks--prim
like virgins without suitors, with their robes drawn close about
them; but when over the unmeasured plain the wind blew, they bowed
their heads gracefully, as a company of eastern girls when the king
commands.
As the two horsemen rode silently around one of these clumps, there
suddenly came through the hush the sound of a girl's voice singing.
The song was exquisitely worded and touching, and the singer's voice
was sweet and limpid as the notes of a bobolink. They marvelled much
who the singer might be, and proposed that both should leave the path
and join the unknown fair one. Dismounting, they fastened their
horses in the shelter of the poplars, and proceeded on foot toward
the point whence the singing came. A few minutes walk brought the two
beyond a small poplar grove, and there, upon a fallen tree-bole, in
the delicious cool of the afternoon, they saw the songstress sitting.
She was a maiden of about eighteen years, and her soft, silky, dark
hair was over her shoulders. In girlish fancy she had woven for
herself a crown of flowers out of marigolds and daisies, and put it
upon her head.
She did not hear the footsteps of the men upon the soft prairie, and
they did not at once reveal themselves, but stood a little way back
listening to her. She had ceased her song, and was gazing beyond
intently. On the naked limb of a desolate, thunder-riven tree that
stood apart from its lush, green-boughed neighbours, sat a thrush in
a most melancholy attitude. Every few seconds he would utter a note
of song, sometimes low and sorrowful, then in a louder key, and more
plaintive, as if he were calling for some responsive voice from far
away over the prairie.