Alas! no. His heart is very heavy with grief, and he must leave the haunts of men to seek relief for his wounded spirit. Converse with the gods alone can bring peace. Hidden from the eye of men he throws himself upon the ground in an agony of spirit. Hero of a hundred battles, his lodge decked with scalp-locks, the story of his valor written in pictures on the walls--valor that had never been exceeded by any that had been told before--the man who had never been defeated lay prone upon the ground, vanquished by this blow. He shed no tears, uttered no cry, but groaned in the bitterness of his grief. Then on the midnight air the plaintive notes of the wail for the departed fell soft and sad, the coranach of his race, the father wailing for his dead son, calling on his name, repeating it again and again in the curious pathetic monotone peculiar to the Indian.
When the day dawned and the night of grief was passed, Bearspaw returned in sadness to his lodge, and the women with dishevelled hair, bare feet and torn and tattered garments, bewailed the dead until the season of mourning was expired.
Life is sad in every clime; to every camp or home death comes. In the midst of peace, prosperity and joy sorrow falls, our loved ones are taken from us, and the world to us seems empty, valueless and of little worth.
Bearspaw never mentioned his son's name; his grief was silent, but his hair grew whiter and deeper furrows marked his brow, telling better than any lamentations how great had been his loss.
Donald Mackton had spent some days in Brisbane, and was preparing to leave and set out again on his travels when he met Peter Daniels. A new acquaintance in the far West was an event of some importance, and worth something in those days. Friends were few and far between, and the chance acquaintance of to-day might be the helpful friend of the morrow.
Peter Daniels was a tall man, of an aristocratic appearance indicative of better days. He was dressed in the usual suit of buckskin, but his jacket was more elaborately ornamented with colored porcupine quills than was common; his pants were made of moose-skin and the leggings worn over them from the knee downward were very handsomely embroidered with beads; his moccasins were also richly worked by the deft hands of an Indian woman. The wide sombrero hat, such as is worn by the Mexican or Montana cowboy, completed his costume. He spoke the pure English of an educated man, yet his face betrayed unmistakable signs of a predilection for strong drink in the past, if not at the present time.