Latour welcomed us with his grim old face wreathed in unusual smiles.The pilot had been talking to him, too.
"I've got it, Latour!" he cried out as he entered; "here you are,"and he broke into the beautiful French-Canadian chanson, "A la Claire Fontaine," to the old half-breed's almost tearful delight.
"Do you know," he went on, "I heard that first down the Mattawa,"and away he went into a story of an experience with French-Canadian raftsmen, mixing up his French and English in so charming a manner that Latour; who in his younger days long ago had been a shantyman himself, hardly knew whether he was standing on his head or on his heels.
After tea I proposed a ride out to see the sunset from the nearest rising ground.Latour, with unexampled generosity, offered his own cayuse, "Louis.""I can't ride well," protested The Pilot.
"Ah! dat's good ponee, Louis," urged Latour."He's quiet lak wan leetle mouse; he's ride lak--what you call?--wan horse-on-de-rock."Under which persuasion the pony was accepted.
That evening I saw the Swan Creek country with new eyes--through the luminous eyes of The Pilot.We rode up the trail by the side of the Swan till we came to the coulee mouth, dark and full of mystery.
"Come on," I said, "we must get to the top for the sunset."He looked lingeringly into the deep shadows and asked: "Anything live down there?""Coyotes and wolves and ghosts."
"Ghosts?" he asked, delightedly."Do you know, I was sure there were, and I'm quite sure I shall see them."Then we took the Porcupine trail and climbed for about two miles the gentle slope to the top of the first rising ground.There we stayed and watched the sun take his nightly plunge into the sea of mountains, now dimly visible.Behind us stretched the prairie, sweeping out level to the sky and cut by the winding coulee of the Swan.Great long shadows from the hills were lying upon its yellow face, and far at the distant edge the gray haze was deepening into purple.Before us lay the hills, softly curving like the shoulders of great sleeping monsters, their tops still bright, but the separating valleys full of shadow.And there, far beyond them, up against the sky, was the line of the mountains--blue, purple, and gold, according as the light fell upon them.The sun had taken his plunge, but he had left behind him his robes of saffron and gold.
We stood long without a word or movement, filling our hearts with the silence and the beauty, till the gold in the west began to grow dim.High above all the night was stretching her star-pierced, blue canopy, and drawing slowly up from the east over the prairie and over the sleeping hills the soft folds of a purple haze.The great silence of the dying day had fallen upon the world and held us fast.
"Listen," he said, in a low tone, pointing to the hills."Can't you hear them breathe?" And, looking at their curving shoulders, Ifancied I could see them slowly heaving as if in heavy sleep, and Iwas quite sure I could hear them breathe.I was under the spell of his voice and his eyes, and nature was all living to me then.
We rode back to the Stopping Place in silence, except for a word of mine now and then which he heeded not; and, with hardly a good night, he left me at the door.I turned away feeling as if I had been in a strange country and among strange people.
How would he do with the Swan Creek folk? Could he make them see the hills breathe? Would they feel as I felt under his voice and eyes? What a curious mixture he was! I was doubtful about his first Sunday, and was surprised to find all my indifference as to his success or failure gone.It was a pity about the baseball match.I would speak to some of the men about it to-morrow.
Hi might be disappointed in his appearance, but, as I turned into my shack and thought over my last two hours with The Pilot and how he had "got" old Latour and myself, I began to think that Hi might be mistaken in his measure of The Pilot.
