rolling hills and shallow valleys—an ocean of brown waves with fast drying sloughs, like patches of sunshine on the surface of the sea—such was the canadian prairie that autumn day—such were the miles and miles of alberta range, bounded by a barbed wire fence that was completely lost in the unobstructed play of sunshine. it was an open wilderness, so vast that it seemed to stretch on almost endlessly beyond the horizon, which lay desolate and unbroken like a rusty, iron ring, girding the earth. its immensity, by an inexorable contrast, dwarfed everything that crept over the surface of the plains into a helpless puniness.
the hundred horses on the range, scattered and grouped by their predilections for each other, looked, in the distance, like ants crawling over the surface of a rock. within sight of each other, bound by the ties of race, they nevertheless had their loves and their preferences. most of the mothers with their little colts grazed in a group by themselves; while a few mothers, as if they felt that their children were better than their neighbour’s children, kept themselves apart from the herd, though always within sight.
among the latter was a shapely, light-brown or buckskin mare who was grazing peacefully about her precious, buckskin coloured daughter. the little one was asleep on the grass. her graceful little legs were stretched as far as she could stretch them. her lovely little head lay flat on the ground. her fluffy tail was thrown back on the grass with a delicious carelessness.
she was only six months old, but already the very image of her mother. from the white strip on her forehead and the heavy black mane down to the unequal white spots on her two hind fetlocks, she was like her. only her wiry, delicately wrought little legs seemed somewhat too long for her.
suddenly the old mare’s head went up high in the air; her grinding teeth ceased grinding as a broken machine comes to a dead stop; and the round, dilated, knowing eyes pierced the slight haze in the atmosphere. the little head on the grass raised just a bit, looked inquiringly at her beloved mother—quite near; then with the innocent confidence of childhood, dropped back again, rubbing the soft fragrant grass in an ecstasy of contentment.
but the old mare continued to gaze intently, standing motionless as a stone. she saw that all the other horses were gazing just as intently as she was. small moving objects—two men on horseback—had broken over the line of shadow along the southern horizon. one of them was loping away to the right and the other to the left. the old buckskin mare had already lived more than twenty years. not only had she herself suffered at the hands of man, but she had had so many of her babies taken from her and cruelly abused—often before her very eyes. her mother’s heart began beating fast and apprehensively.
the other mares, not far from her, also showed signs of extreme nervousness. the buckskin saw them run off for a short distance as if in panic, then stop and gaze anxiously at the approaching riders. it was time to act. she looked questioningly a moment toward the north; but she realised that that direction would soon be closed to her, for she could tell that the riders, loping straight north, meant to turn in time and come back upon them.
she called nervously to her little one. the little thing sprang to its feet, sidled up to her and gazed at the dark specks that were coming together in the north, with fear glowing moist in her large, round eyes.
until she had seen a group of horsemen dismount, one day, she had thought that man was a monstrous sort of horse with a frightful hump on its back. what little she had been able to learn about him since that time had served only to intensify her fear of him; and despite her abiding confidence in her mother, she trembled timorously as she heard the ominous hoof-beats in the distance.
the animals instinctively gathered into a bunch and started away at full speed. while one of the horsemen remained some distance behind, ready to prevent the group from going off to either side, the other plunged into the midst of them and deftly separated the mothers and their colts from the rest of the bunch. then they allowed the single horses to run off to the north at their will; while they came together behind the mothers and their colts and drove them southward toward the long line of shadow that lay like a black elongated reptile, below the horizon and parallel to it.
that long line of shadow, which widened as they neared it, was a great canyon which the red deer river had cut out of the level plains. from the jaws of the mouth of the canyon, which were a mile or so apart, the floor of the prairies fell away sheer in places, to a depth of a thousand feet. in many spots there were several parallel cuts in the edge of that floor. where, during the ages, the elements had been unable to remove the loose earth, it lay along the bank in steep hills which rose up from the bottom of the canyon like gigantic teeth, all crumbling more or less, all dotted with stones and covered here and there with blotches of sagebrush and cacti.
in the centre of the flat-bottomed canyon, as if an ancient torrential flood had spent itself and narrowed down at last to a small, shining stream, a quarter of a mile in width, ran the red deer river. in the middle of the half-mile wide space between the river and the hills that made the wall of the canyon, stood the buildings of the ranch. the house, a small shingled structure, stood on the east end of the spacious, sandy yard; while opposite and facing it was the long, red barn with its open door below and the gaping window space in the loft above. north of the barn and against its blind wall there was a big corral, divided into two parts by a partition. the corral walls as well as the partition were made of logs laid horizontally, a foot apart and rising to a height of some eight feet. each of these two sections had huge swinging gates which opened inward.
as helplessly as the waters of niagara, the frantic mothers, stealing side glances at their little ones and feeling them at their sides, poured down the steep incline, between the giant teeth, into the mouth of the canyon, slipping, sliding, and leaping downward riskily, in haste and fear. on the level bottom of the canyon, the buckskin mare made an attempt to turn from the path which led to the rancher’s buildings in the hope of getting to the river beyond; but one of the horsemen divined her rebellious intention and shot by her like a flash of light, heading her off and forcing her back. she realised the futility of baffling their superior wills; but went back with an angry shake of her wise old head and a deliberate scowl of hatred for the tormenting man and the servile horse under him who was betraying his kind.
however the old mare happened to feel, the little buckskin, since the forces of evil had as yet made no attempt to separate her from her mother, shook the fear from her heart and took all the delight there was to take in this unexpected excitement of the day. healthy to the last cell in her body, the race had merely accelerated the circulation of her blood; and the ease with which she was able to keep up with her mother made her conscious of a great and thrilling power. her eyes and nostrils dilated, her mane bristling and her tail unfurled, her springy legs carrying her with ease, there was an expression of boundless joy in the motion of her graceful body.
the gates of the corral stood wide open. being so driven that they could not swerve from the path, half the group poured into one section of the corral and the other half into the other. when they turned at the opposite walls realising that there, there was no way out again, and came back toward the gates, they saw the men closing them.
only the soul that has been trapped knows the crushing torment of four relentless walls. round and round they went, madly and stupidly, and clouds of beaten earth rose from under their feet and choked them. finally becoming aware of the fact that the men were not pursuing them any longer, they packed into a corner of the corral and, looking over the corral walls and between the logs, sought to learn what they were doing. they saw one man building a fire in the open, but a few paces from the corral; while the other was calmly and portentously making preparations that were only too familiar to the old mares.
the little buckskin, beside her mother, always beside her mother, clinging to that big beloved body as the soul clings to life, was wedged into the very corner and right against the logs of the wall, so that her frightened eye, in the middle of the open space between two logs, could see the rancher’s house some four rods away.
her sides were still throbbing violently when she saw the house door open. a little girl appeared. the little filly did not know what kind of animal that was except that she guessed that it was some sort of man. she perceived with renewed trepidation that the little girl was hopping and skipping directly toward her. in her fright she pressed tight against her mother, but her mother, much more concerned with the men and apparently indifferent to the little girl, would not move an inch. when suddenly the little buckskin felt the touch of the little girl’s hand on her back, she called out frantically to her mother. but the old mare bent down her long neck, touched the little head with her soft, warm lips, murmured reassuringly and then looked away again. by that time the filly realised, uncomfortable though she was, that the little hand was not going to hurt her.
the little girl climbed up two of the logs, moved slowly toward the little buckskin’s head, talking softly and coaxingly as she moved. the filly listened with ears pricked high. in the stream of meaningless prattle, the foal became aware of the existence of the combination of sounds, “queen,” as one becomes aware of a constantly repeated melody in a piece of music. by the time the little girl had carefully pushed her head through the space between two logs, directly in front of the filly’s muzzle, the little buckskin, though frightened again, became exceedingly curious. there was something very disarming about that soft voice and the soothing repetition of the word, “queen.” she cautiously stretched her muzzle, sniffing at the little mouth, moving it closer and closer and just when she touched the little girl’s face, with a cry of delight the little girl kissed her fervently on the nose.
she drew her muzzle away quickly and looked with a frightened eye. it had interrupted her attempt to sniff, however, and once more assured that there was nothing harmful about the little girl, she made a second attempt. the little girl continued calling her, “queen,” coaxingly, till the little muzzle touched her lips again and once more she kissed her, crying out again with delight.
this sweet, unofficial christening might have resulted in a beautiful, enduring friendship, but a sudden, terrific patter of feet in the next corral came through the air accompanied by a nauseating cloud of smoke, and all was confusion again. round and round their section of the corral they swept again till they realised that the men were not yet molesting them. when they stopped to investigate, little queen saw a man in the other section of the corral rush toward a mare with a long hideous stick. she saw him strike the colt that tried to follow her and saw the colt run back into the corral while the mother had run out. she could not quite understand what he was doing; but she experienced an overwhelming fear of losing her mother, and clung to her beloved sides with more tenacity than ever.
the other section of the corral was finally cleared of all the mares who, standing on the outside, would not go away; but in concert rent the air with their cries of protest. queen was so curious that, despite her beating heart, she moved to where she could see what was going on. she saw ropes flash through the air and immediately after, a little colt fell to the dusty ground. the cry from the little one’s mother was answered by a stifled cry from the ground and as queen, unable to stand still for fear, listened to that cry, there suddenly began coming to her the odour of blood and burning flesh. madness seized upon them once more and the dizzying whirl round the choking corral gave them some relief. they finally stopped to rest a while, only to have another colt thrown and his cries and the smell of burning flesh set them through the frenzied motion round the corral, all over again.
most of the afternoon it took before all the colts in the first section had been branded and mutilated. it was a noisy, dusty, cruel process; and the men, perspiring heavily, their faces wet and black with the dust that settled on them, looked like tormenting imps of hell; but they were no more to be blamed for the cruelty that was theirs to do than were their helpless victims.
all that clamour of pain and struggle could not disturb the mist-like loneliness that brooded over the far-reaching distance. on the other side of the river, visible beyond less rugged banks, stretched a lifeless country of hills and plains, so desolate and so motionless that the very stones that dotted them seemed with their feeble reflections to be futilely protesting against their destitution.
a pause came to the torturous struggle. the gate of the first corral was opened and the sickened little colts shambled out into the open where their frantic mothers caressed them, then led them away to the east. the men walked off and disappeared in the house. taking advantage of the silence and the respite, the still captive colts, one after another, took to sucking. it was not very long, however, before they were interrupted by the reappearance of the men. the skin on every captive began to tremble and the eight mothers with their eight colts packed into one corner.
one man, carrying a long stick, entered the section and advanced to the middle while the other stationed himself at the gate. first the man with the stick forced the group to move into the opposite corner, then, after a long struggle, he singled out the buckskin mare. he had driven her toward the gate but a few feet, when little queen, bending so low that she passed under the stick, rushed out of reach of it and gained her mother’s side. had it not been for the vigilance of the man at the gate they would have both escaped. it was getting to be late in the afternoon and the man was tired and impatient. as with most impatient people, his common sense gave way to his impatience. he was not only determined to get the buckskin mare out first, but he was even more anxious to punish her. he singled her out again and reaching her, struck her with his stick. in pain and fright, the mare rushed for the gate. it was partially opened and she was half way out when a cry from little queen, who saw her leaving her, brought her to her senses.
rebelliously, she reared and fell with full force upon the gate. it swung violently backward, striking the man who held it so severely that it knocked him off his feet and sent him rolling to the wall. the second man who was trying to prevent queen from following her mother was away over at the other end of the corral. the gateman’s cry and the image of him on the dusty ground, so confused the other that for a few moments he stood still, unable to move a muscle. when he saw his partner pick himself up, he realised that he should have hurried to the gate and closed it; but by that time the whole group had escaped and were racing for the hills, the buckskin mare in the lead and her precious queen eagerly behind her.
with a majestic toss of her head, conscious of having scored a victory, and determined to keep it, the buckskin mare fled across the flats. it was now not only the overwhelming desire to get away. vaguely she realised that she had crossed the man’s will and that that was a punishable offence.
the mothers whose foals had been branded were off on a field at the foot of the hills. the field had yielded a crop of oats and the oats had been reaped and taken from the field; but there was still enough grain left to make it worth their while to remain there. if, when they followed the fugitives with their eyes, they had any desire to go along, they knew that their sickened colts would not go with them.
the buckskin mare gave them hardly a glance. she struck up the steep incline with risky speed, bent upon getting out of the men’s reach, as soon as was possible. the men, on the other hand, were at a disadvantage. before they could saddle their ponies, the mares, they knew, would be off somewhere at the other end of the range. they realised, too, that the mares were now so excited that they would have very great difficulty in rounding them up. they were angry at the rebellious mare, but these animals were their property and they did not want to hurt them. another struggle at that time, they felt, might even endanger their own lives. the man who had been knocked over was not only as tired as the other fellow was, but he was aching from head to foot. besides, the afternoon was rapidly giving way to early evening. they decided to finish the branding on the following day.
but to the buckskin mare the spaces behind her seemed peopled with imaginary pursuers, and she struggled up the slippery incline as if her very life depended upon getting to the top and away. the rest of the mares that fled with her and their little ones seemed to find greater difficulty in getting to the top, but they followed as eagerly. rocks and sand rolled thunderously down behind them and the dust rose from the mouth of the canyon like volcanic smoke.
when they finally reached the level plains above, the old mare was white with foam. they had that afternoon been rounded up in a hollow toward the northeast of where they now were and fear of being rounded up again sent the buckskin mare to the west. her usual fear of man, many times intensified by the feeling that now she would be severely punished for breaking loose, aroused in her old head the instinctive desire of the animal that is pursued, to get under cover. though there was neither sight nor sound of any one behind her, she ran with might and main for the coulee that she knew was a mile and a half to the west, and until she had turned over the lip of the coulee and had reached the very end of its slope, she did not slacken her pace, several times almost breaking a leg in badger holes that she avoided by only a hair’s breadth. down in the gulch there was a path, made by the water of the melted snow in spring as it had wound its way to the river. along this path, which led northward, they trotted without stopping till they came to where the range fence forced them to halt.
here at last they rested, though the buckskin mare kept anxious vigil for the first sign of any one pursuing them. the mothers began grazing slowly while their young, moving with them, strove to get the milk they felt belonged to them. as soon as the colts had had all the milk there was for them they went leisurely in search of tender grasses and soon all were grazing as if nothing had ever happened.
but the buckskin mare was still worried. she walked to the two wires that barred her way and with her head above the upper wire she gazed to the north. a quarter of a mile away, the coulee ended. its floor curved upward like the bottom of a ship. where it ended and the prairie floor began there was a cluster of sagebrush. the evening was rapidly turning the sage into a silhouette against the bright background of the sky. fear of pursuit came back with the coming of the night and the old mare roused herself. with a sudden impulse she backed away from the wires and dropped to her knees. pushing her head under the lower wire she moved cautiously forward, an inch at a time. slowly she felt the wire move backward over her body and each time the barb dug through her skin she stopped and tried to crouch lower. with a sharp scratch it rolled over her withers and stuck painfully into her back. she tried again to crouch down lower, but failing to rid herself of the barb, she rested a moment.
the barb hurt her considerably and she made a strenuous effort to lower herself out of its reach, and in so doing pressed her outstretched muzzle right into a rosebush. while the pain of thorns still pricked her lips there was a sudden flash of white right before her eyes and a thump on the ground as if a rock had been thrown at her. with all the strength in her body, forgetting in her fright the wire on her back, she sprang backward to her feet, snapping the lower wire and stretching the upper one as if it had been a string.
her frightened jump, the momentary struggle with the upper wire that had caught in her mane, and the cry that escaped her, set the group into a stampede, and she herself, when finally freed from the entangling wire, dashed off to the rear for a dozen rods. the slopes of the coulee were dotted with the mares and colts who had fled in every direction. outside the range and on the rim of the coulee lay a silly rabbit, stretching himself and gazing down with foolish eyes.
there was nothing dangerous visible and nothing in the air to worry her, so the old mare started slowly and cautiously back again toward the one wire now hanging limply, and, in one place, less than two feet from the ground. there she sniffed about carefully and suddenly raising her head, she caught sight of the rabbit, as he was bounding away.
there were many things that the old buckskin was afraid of, but a rabbit was not one of them. realising that she had allowed herself to become alarmed at nothing, she went at her task with greater determination. she was about to get down to her knees again when she realised that the remaining wire was now low enough for her to step over it. carefully lifting each leg, her skin quivering with her excitement, the buckskin mare stepped over the wire into freedom; and little queen, frightened to see her mother beyond the fence, made it with a single leap.
the old buckskin was for running now as fast as she could for the north, but she wanted the rest of the mares to go with her. she turned to look at them. there they were grazing at various points with absolute indifference to the great achievement she had consummated. she called to them to follow, but beyond a busy reply they paid no heed to her. when, however, they heard the sound of her tearing the more abundant grass outside the range, they awoke to the fact that they were not getting all they might get. whereas the ideal of liberty had been an abstraction to them, the fact of abundant grass was a reality, and it was not many minutes before, one by one, they had all made their way over the hanging wire.
the late autumn nights had steadily grown colder and, since hollows are colder than the higher portions of the prairie at night, they moved rapidly to the plains above. round about them lay the silent night, dark and infinite, and the stars looked down upon its hidden desolation. closely together they grazed, lips fairly touching lips, without protest or impatience. as they grazed, they moved on to the north, and the rhythmic tear-tear of grass interspersed with rhythmic footfalls was the accompanying cadence of their half-unconscious flight.
some four miles from the range, they slept for the night on a low round hill and when dawn came they found the earth covered white with frost. the sun rose, putting a slight tinge of red into the whiteness, and queen was so curious about it she went looking for the spots where it was thickest and licked it off the sage or rosebushes.
to warm up they raced for half an hour, following the old buckskin to the north, then spent the rest of the morning grazing and moving leisurely. it was well on toward the middle of the day when an open triangle of honking geese, high in the air, made them look up. the old mare watched the geese move across the sky till they were lost in the south and was just about to return to her grazing when she saw two small objects appear on the horizon. they were so far away that they were indiscernible, but she did not wait to make certain what they were. with a call that frightened the little herd she turned north and fled.
for several hours they raced on toward the heart of the wilderness; then complaint on the part of the little ones, who did not like this endless running, stopped them. but they had rested only a few minutes when they discovered the rancher and his assistant rounding a hill about two miles behind them. the frantic mothers, remembering yesterday’s struggle, fled at top speed, never slackening for a moment till, nearly twelve miles farther north, the little ones deliberately hung back. when, however, half an hour later, their pursuers surprised them by coming up on top of a hill only half a mile to their rear, the colts fully realised the danger and from that time on they sped along without a murmur.
the afternoon wore along toward evening and though, as the shadows began lengthening, they felt that their pursuers had abandoned the pursuit, they did not cease running until the thickening darkness gave them a greater feeling of security. even then their rest was a nervous one. they grazed with ears pricked and when they felt that their little ones would follow they started off again, going at a steady trot.
they came, late in the night, to a hollow in the middle of which was a huge shadow, which they recognised was a stack of hay. there were no lights about anywhere, nor was there the slightest trace of man in the air. a cold wind had blown up from the west and their wet bodies were made uncomfortably cold. lying down on the open plains in that condition, they knew, would not give them much rest. they felt the need of rest even more strongly than that of food and the haystack offered protection against the wind. so they approached very cautiously.
something white at its base seemed to have moved as they neared it, and the whole herd stopped to look and to sniff. the old buckskin mare, who was now, as she had been all the time, in the lead, took a few steps farther and sniffed again. she smelled rotten hay and with that smell came the smell of warm bodies of horses. she called out inquiringly.
in answer to her call, the white object at the base of the stack, raised itself laboriously from the ground and replied with a lazy, sleepy whinny. immediately the little herd started toward the stack. she found the white object to be a white mare and in the rotten hay lay her jet black colt, complaining impatiently because his mother had disturbed him by getting up, and he felt disagreeably cold.
the hay was very old and very rotten, but they had not come there to feast. what they wanted was shelter from the hard wind and each one went looking for a good place to rest in. the buckskin mare almost stepped on the leg of an old work-horse. in spite of her annoying him, he whinnied so good-naturedly that she decided to stay right there near him. queen pushed herself into the hay beside the old work-horse and her mother lay down in front of her. protected against the wind on all sides she was soon very comfortable and cosy and fell fast asleep.
