then came an early spring. geese returned from the south. the sadness in their honking had given way to the exaltation of rebirth. the snows melted almost in a day. hundreds of wild ducks populated the many sloughs in the hollows, and filled the delightful evenings with the soft calling of their love-making. in the still nights or as she lay through the rest periods which she now so strangely needed, queen kept her ears pricked high to catch the last faint sound of every love call and the air now almost always vibrated with some one form or another of these calls.
white-black, still a playful colt, thrilled her with his presence or the touch of his lovely nose; but something sweet and remote was mysteriously laying hold upon the love in her heart. she liked to half close her eyes and doze, floating as she dozed, on the waves of this new emotion. it seemed a joyous feeling all her own and unlike any joy she had ever experienced before. it was a joy she felt within, a joy that expressed itself best in dreaming rather than in the activity that her other joys had always stimulated.
she liked to wander away by herself. white-black would follow her about a good deal and sought to arouse her old play spirit; but when he realised that he could not influence her any more as he used to, he learned to let her alone. she seemed to have lost her agility and preferred to be on the outskirts of the circle of the herd where she could move about with less excitement. she liked to wander around the small ponds and listen to the croaking of frogs, always lingering till the night shadows lay thick over all things and she heard the ineffable half murmur, half song of wild ducks, as they paddled along in the stillness of the night.
often by day she would stop her shuffling gait and with her nose down among the blades of grass, she would watch the little sandpiper, wondering what he meant with his heart-rending pee-weet and his eternal seeking. sometimes she would stand for a long time and watch the brown curlew and listen to his persistent, lugubrious complaint. all these sounds, these melodious cries of strange little souls, somehow responded harmoniously to voices and emotions in her own soul, and she looked upon them as fellow beings of the wilds she loved, knowing each by the sound of his voice.
so too the woods interested her, though she had never penetrated them very far, because the woods were confining and she loved the open where one could see and run in all directions. yet she loved the trees because these new emotions which had mysteriously come to her made her more observant than she had been. she realised more fully than ever before that woods and plains and skies had moods in each of which they were different, and these revelations broadening her outlook upon her surroundings made her, in a way, more capable of joy.
to white-black she was a puzzle. yielding to her desire to be alone and interesting himself in other friends, he nevertheless kept an eye on her. there came a period in which he missed her entirely. day after day, he went looking for her and then one day he found her in the woods, on an open grassy spot, cut off from the plains by a small pond and a thin wall of poplars. she was licking a small black colt that was trying very hard to stand on its long, shaky legs.
white-black was so glad to see her he began to neigh excitedly and caper about the water’s edge. then, wading across the pond, he ran toward her; but she sprang between him and her baby with an angry whinny, ears down, eyes glowing and her lips curling threateningly. he stopped a few paces from her and whinnied placatingly; but she threatened him again and he was afraid to approach. he gazed at her from where he was for a few minutes, then like a man who, failing to understand, shrugs his shoulders, he lowered his head and began to graze, looking up occasionally to see if she had changed her attitude in any way. at last, discouraged, he walked to the pond, took a long drink, waded across and disappeared.
for several days queen kept to herself in her own little pasture in the woods. she knew just where the herd was and what they were doing at all times for she watched them almost as anxiously as she watched over her little son. her baby grew stronger every day, spending most of his time romping about the limited space, learning to use his awkward legs; and as he grew stronger, the desire to return to the herd began to make queen restless.
at last she led the little fellow carefully around the pond, but just as she reached the open space she saw the herd gathering as if danger threatened. she stopped short, raised her beautiful head and with one long nervous sniff took in the whole situation.
man again!
she could not see the horseman, but she heard the faint, far away patter of hoofs and the scent of man trickled through the air. she turned about and looked at her little one who was innocently indifferent to what worried her and extremely interested in the open space of which, being behind her, he had caught but a glimpse. she knew that if she attempted to join the herd and fly with them, he could not follow her. she could hear, as she tried to decide what to do, the sudden clamour of hoof-beats as the herd broke into a race for safety. she did not even turn to see them go. with utmost haste she glided under cover.
she was not content with what safety the little pasture offered. as if she had been a creature of the woods, she picked her way through thorny shrubs and under heavy branches, till she came to a secluded spot that satisfied her and there she lay down to regain her composure.
for almost a week she lived like a deer, hiding in the woods and coming out by night to graze and to seek the herd which she hoped would return. then as the days went by and she had come upon no trace of man in the air of the open prairies, she ceased going back into the woods, and divided her time between her baby, feeding, and looking wistfully and hopefully over hill and hollow for her lost companions, calling, calling, calling till the solitudes echoed with the anguish in her heart.
her interest in the small living things that went about the daily business of their little lives revived and the anxious searching of the plains often gave way to an absorbed study of her little neighbours. she came upon a mother duck, one day, who was waddling down the old buffalo trail with a brood of tiny little ducklings, only a few yards away from her. queen slackened her pace when she saw that the mother duck was getting excited, and watched them. the old duck walked on as rapidly as she could, turning her head from side to side as she scrutinised queen first with one eye and then with the other, and though she did not seem to consider her a very grave danger she called her little ones and swerved off the path. the old duck was apparently leading them to the slough, but she hadn’t gone very far when a lean and hungry-looking coyote shot out from a cluster of rosebushes.
instantly there was a frantic whir of wings and while the mother duck flew almost upon the coyote, the little ones scattered, dropping down under bushes or flowers or disappearing in gopher holes. queen was too much worried about her own baby to notice at the time what happened to the duck. she sprang protectingly toward her foal and then when she looked up she saw the coyote running eagerly after the duck, who acted as if one of her wings were broken. flopping with one wing she cried with fright and half flew, half ran on ahead of him. the foolish coyote thought she was wounded and licked his chops as he ran, anticipating a good meal.
the old duck appeared to be losing; but always just as the coyote was about to seize her she flew off with a cry. thus she led him far away and out of sight. but before queen had started off again for the slough, she saw the anxious mother duck come flying from the opposite direction. queen turned from her to where the coyote had disappeared wondering whether he was coming back. the joyous peeping of the little brood who appeared in all directions at the first call of their mother, reassured her and she followed them down to the pond.
the duck and the little ones set sail as soon as they touched the water, and paddled away triumphantly to the centre of the slough where among the rushes no foolish coyote could threaten them. the lesson of duck wisdom impressed itself deeply on queen’s mind in a series of pictures, and she sensed acutely the trick the duck had played upon the coyote. she hated the coyote because she feared him. the very sight of him made her uncomfortable and she did not let the little one out of her sight for an instant. even when she drank, the image of the beast would come into her mind and between sips she would raise her head and stare all around her to make sure that he hadn’t come back; for from that time on, she seemed to expect him to show up at any moment.
long as the days were at this time of the year, they succeeded each other rapidly and each day added to the weight of loneliness on queen’s heart. ducks came in great numbers, returning from their sojourns into the land of motherhood with flourishing broods. gophers appeared everywhere. the saucy little fellows would sit up on their haunches a yard away from queen’s head and defy her with their queer little barks, which betrayed much more fear than defiance. the colt would look at them with his large, round eyes, sometimes making an attempt to approach them but as soon as he came too near they fled. coyotes began to show themselves more and more often, and every time queen came upon one, even the clear memory of the duck playing her trick could not prevent her heart from throbbing with fear.
a variety of flowers appeared, one kind giving way to another, and the sloughs on the open began to shrink daily. the woods retained their ponds, cool and clear, and in the darker corners, among the tall poplars, there were still shrunken drifts of snow.
in spite of the abundance of food and water, in spite of her growing interest in her baby who played about her in perfect contentment, and played more and more delightfully, queen’s longing for her companions reached overwhelming proportions and at last she started away from those solitudes in search of the herd.
for several days she travelled toward the east along the wall of the woods. she came to where the woods ended and a vast treeless plain stretched away beyond vision. from the pointed end of the woods, an old, partially overgrown buffalo trail cut diagonally across the prairie, running comparatively straight southeast. there she remained for a few days as if unable to decide which way to go. then, one day, when she had followed the buffalo trail for several miles she came upon signs of the herd. this puzzled her, for experience had taught her not to go south; yet here was unmistakable evidence that they had gone south; and they were her goal. despite her disinclination to go in that direction, she went on eagerly, moving each day as far as her colt would go without protest, and resting when he refused to go any farther.
one evening, long after the woods had faded out of sight, when her baby balked at the daily increase in the distance she urged him to make and deliberately lay down on the path, she saw what seemed to be two horses, grazing. queen broke the stillness with an impassioned whinnying that puzzled the little fellow. the fact that she was standing with her back to him and whinnying so frantically interested him. that she might be calling to any one but himself was entirely beyond his experience. feeling that she was looking for him, he got up and sidled up to her, touching her neck with his little nose. queen bent down and covered him with caresses; but to his dismay, she soon returned to her calling, keeping her head high and looking away into the shadows.
the darkness obliterated the two horses and queen, unable to stand still, started away again, the little fellow complaining plaintively as he lumbered after her. when, however, he lay down once more, she yielded and there they spent the night.
her night’s rest was a troubled one. what with other emotions tormenting her, there was a strong scent of man in the air that kept her awake and watchful. when dawn came at last, she saw the two horses, still grazing but much nearer to her. beyond them she saw two black mounds, like malignant growths on the body of the plains. in these mounds, she knew, lived man.
she was afraid to go any closer to the mounds so she called loudly to the two horses who finally responded by starting in her direction. when she saw them coming, she hastened to meet them, despite her fear. she whinnied loudly as she went and when the foremost of the two horses replied to her, his voice sounded familiar. who it was she did not know but she started toward him on a gallop and as soon as she touched his nose, she remembered the old sorrel work-horse of the spring lake in the bowl-like valley of her childhood.
where he had been, how he had got up there, what he was doing, these were facts queen could not find out, nor did she experience any desire to find out. life to her was somewhat of an abysmal night with beautiful, star-like gleams of understanding. the past to her was an ally of death not to be thought about and the future became important only when it turned into the present. the sole value of the impressions that she carried in her memory lay in the help they offered for the understanding of the impressions that the present was making and queen never wept over them.
there was the old sorrel before her! the memory of what he had been to her, inundated by floods of time and other experiences, had gone out like the stars at dawn. but now, certain odours and sounds and qualities too delicate for words, like the evening that follows every dawn, brought the stars back to her sky and she strove to express the almost inexpressible satisfaction she experienced.
the other horse was a stranger and so queen was wary of him. she sniffed noses with him suspiciously and kept away, refusing to allow him to go near her colt whereas the old sorrel sniffed all over him without her protest.
but the pleasure she derived from the momentary satisfaction of the longing for companionship, inadequate as it was, had its price. her excitement was so great that she did not notice the coming of another horse with a man on his back, till he was already dangerously close. with an anxious call to her little one she dashed away in the direction from which she had come. the two horses went with her.
it was not long however before she saw the man through the corner of her eye, urging his straining horse, apparently to get ahead of her. queen was not running as fast as she could, for she knew that her baby could not keep up with her. but the sight of the man at the side of her bewildered her. she leaped out of his way, leaving him a hundred feet behind only to realise at once that her colt was not with her. she swung off to the side and turned to see the man driving the old sorrel, his companion, and her own colt off towards the black mounds.
her eyes fairly bulging out of her head, her lips frothing, queen leaped back after him, calling frantically to him as she ran. as soon as the little thing heard her, he turned to run back, but instantly the man threw a rope and caught him round the neck, hurling him to the ground. the two horses ran on toward the mounds, but the man stopped, dismounted and battled with her frightened, crying baby.
the desire to hurt was foreign to queen’s nature, but when she saw her foal on the ground struggling with the man who was apparently getting the better of it, she ran toward the monster with murder in her heart. the man saw her coming and with the other end of his long rope he struck her head a terrible blow. she jumped back in terror. before she had aroused enough courage to make another attack, the man had completely tied the little thing so that it could not move a limb and, mounting his horse again, he rode away.
queen rushed to her little son with a sense of relief but that feeling soon gave way to one of painful solicitude. she had her baby and the man had left, but the baby was helplessly tied. it was changed with a change like death. the monstrous two-legged creature had cast a spell upon it. she ran around it frantically, called to it encouragingly, licked it tenderly, then ran off a few paces, urging it to exert itself and follow her.
then to her horror, she saw the man coming back. this time he had the sorrel and his companion with him. she grew desperate. she bit at the rope with nervous haste, trying to drag her colt away with her, but her efforts resulted only in hurting it and at the first cry of pain, she stopped. until the man was so near that he struck her with the long binder whip which he had brought with him, she would not leave her baby and then she only kept out of reach of the whip. finally, in desperation, unable to decide upon anything that she might try to do, she stood and watched; while the man was busy, preparing the ropes on the stone boat which the two horses had been dragging after them.
one thing at once hurt and puzzled her, and that was the nonresistance of the old sorrel. there he stood covered with the bewildering straps with their glittering buckles, making no attempt to run from the man nor to help her. he did not even call to her.
she tried to make out how the man succeeded in holding the two horses though he was not even looking at them. her deliberations, however, were suddenly interrupted by the man’s leaving the stone boat and going to her little one. when she saw him drag the colt to the stone boat, she went mad again and rushed at him with bared teeth; but as soon as he straightened himself and turned to her, she fled.
her hatred included the old sorrel when she saw him start away dragging her baby off. she sprang at him from the side and nipped him savagely. the old fellow got frightened and backed up almost stepping upon the helpless little colt on the stone boat. the man got angry. he jumped from the stone boat and with his long whip struck her with all his strength squarely upon her tender nose. the pain took her breath away. she reared on her hind legs in a fit of agony, then dashed out of reach, and the man drove off with her colt.
bewildered by her anguish, she ran after him, rending the air with her cries, zigzagging from one side to the other. when the man reached one of the black mounds, his sod barn, queen remained at a distance, running around the place in a wide circle and running steadily as if she found relief in activity.
the man disappeared in the black mound, but when queen ventured nearer, for fear that she would again attack the old sorrel, the man poked his head out of a hole in the wall and yelled at her; and she turned and ran. when she started for the barn again, the man came out altogether. she was forty rods away when she turned and as she did so she heard the strong, healthy call from her colt, muffled by the confinement of the barn; but apparently free as if he were untied. she replied with all her strength and ran toward the barn, stopping a hundred feet away and watching the man, as he fastened the barn-door securely.
she saw him unhook the horses from the stone boat and then drive them over to a queer-looking instrument that lay near the house. then she saw them start away with the plow dragging behind the horses. they were coming toward her so she loped away to the right. when she stopped, she saw that they were not following her but were going off toward the south. considerably relieved she watched them go till they were lost from view behind a hill.
she trotted up to the first of the two mounds, the man’s small, sod house and cautiously sniffed about for a few minutes to make sure that there was no other man about. the odours there were unendurable, but everything was motionless, and at a call from her little one, she ran to the barn. for a while she ran round and round it as she called, then suddenly she spied his little head through a hole in the wall. she attempted to thrust her head in. she just managed to touch him with her hot lips, but the fear of the evil-smelling barn forced her to withdraw her head, in spite of her desire to keep touching him. she had the feeling of being trapped herself and immediately loped away again. a thorough examination of the house and the plains, however, assured her that she was still free and that the man was not returning.
again and again she thrust her head into the hole, and despite the nauseating odours she prolonged her caresses every succeeding time that she put her head through the window. yet she realised that that was not giving her back her baby. at the same time the touch of his beloved head intensified the fire in her heart and she began desperately to seek some way of getting him out.
there was a pile of manure back of the barn which sloped upward till it almost reached the flat, straw roof. she ran around the barn in an attempt to find some opening and every time she came to the heap of manure she was forced to enlarge the circle she was making. with a look in every direction, to make sure the man was not returning, she suddenly started up the pile of manure and carefully stepped upon the roof of the barn.
she had only taken a step forward, though, when she felt the roof giving way under her feet. this frightened her and she attempted to turn back much too hastily. before she could get back to the pile of dirt, half the roof together with a part of the wall caved in, dropping her down into the barn on top of the débris. she was very badly frightened. without stopping even to look for her colt, she leaped over the remaining portion of the wall taking half of it with her.
she did not turn to see what she had accomplished but fled in terror over the fields. when her courage returned, she looked back and happily discovered that still the man had not returned, nor was there any other sign of danger. on the other hand her little colt was now standing near the broken wall, his head and shoulder sticking up above it, calling frantically. she then hurried back with all her speed, caressing him as if she hadn’t seen him for weeks, and urging him, in her dumb way, to come out.
he tried very hard to get over the barrier, but could not make it. to show him how to do it, she jumped in again and as she jumped she knocked another layer of sod into the barn. then as she was about to leap out a second time she heard a familiar whinny behind her. turning nervously, she made out in the gloom of the other end of the barn, two horses, one of them her mate. poor white-black was standing listlessly in a cage-like stall, securely tied to the manger. his voice was weaker than it had ever been, and his calling seemed strangely half-hearted. a great desire to touch his nose came over her, though the fear of the barn, the frightfully nauseating odours and the slippery, dirty floor, all urged her to fly before some mysterious force should seize her and hold her there. all she was able to do was to call to him from where she stood trembling near the opening in the wall, ready to jump at the first sign of danger. the sound of her own voice in the confines of the gloomy barn terrified her. with a single bound she leaped over the broken wall, taking so much more of it with her, lowering it so decidedly that the little fellow was able to climb over it.
with a last heartfelt call to white-black, appealing to him to follow her as he used to follow her in the days that had gone, queen raced once more toward the haven of the north, ran against all feeble protest of her little son, ran till the loathsome mounds vanished from the undulating plains.
in a hollow where a spring slough had turned much of the earth into mud and then had partially dried up, queen drank, fed her baby; and, because he would go no further, she grazed while he rested. she felt very unsafe and gazed incessantly and fearfully toward the hilltop behind her. two images she expected to see coming over the brow every time she looked up. she expected and feared to see the man coming after her and she expected and hoped to see white-black. neither came, but both haunted her stormy mind and allowed it no peace.
fear urged her to be off and away but every time she started, her little fellow refused to go with her. he would raise his head painfully from the grass and call to her but he would not get up. he had not taken all the milk there was for him and he acted very peculiarly, but queen’s fear was implacable. she pretended to leave him and ran all the way up the other slope of the hollow. he called to her in a frenzy of fear, but though her heart beat fast for him, she did not reply and when she began to disappear over the summit of the hill he got up in haste and ran with all his strength till he found her but a few feet from the summit. she whinnied to him lovingly but continued her trot and he wearily followed her.
a peculiar note in his cry, some distance farther on, made her turn round to look at him. she saw him touch his shoulder with his little nose and as he touched it she saw a swarm of insects fly off from the spot. she walked back to him and discovered a deep gash that ran across his breast and up his other shoulder. the hideous cut was covered by lumps of coagulated blood and the insects settled back on it as soon as he withdrew his nose.
she proceeded at once to lick the wound till she found it was bleeding again and stopped, bewildered by the dripping blood. but the bigger problem presented itself anew. she looked up suddenly and spied, on the horizon in the direction from which she had come, a black moving object. she was certain that it was the man coming after her and springing forward a few paces stopped suddenly when she found that her colt was not following her. she stamped her foot frantically, calling to him with more terror than urge.
he started bravely after her, but the more he ran, the more his wound opened, and the coagulation that had taken place and was trying to take place failed to save him. queen, who loved him with magnificent passion, did not know that her running was killing him. what could she have done if she had known? the man was fast gaining in the chase. man always gained, save where death entered the race and death was slowly defeating this man.
at last, the little fellow dropped, exhausted. when she hurried back to caress and to urge him on, she knew that he could go no further. the man had disappeared behind a hill. queen ran back with a mad, desperate impulse to bar his way to her little son. the image of a mother duck flying into the face of a coyote, flashed through her brain. she ran down one hillside and up another, her throbbing sides wet with perspiration, and in the valley below that, she saw him.
he was somewhat to the right of her. seeing her he turned to the left. she, too, turned left and she ran trying to keep a hill between them. as soon as she heard him coming over the hill that was between them she raced over the next hill. in that way she led him several miles north, then running for the first time as fast as she could go, she fled west.
on the top of one of the hills, she stopped finally and looked back. she saw the man turn homeward and before he should see her, she dropped down into a valley and there she started back to her colt, running now as fast as ever, though her sides were white with foam. when she got to a second hilltop and found that the man had disappeared and that there was no trace of him in the air, she loped along a bit more easily.
the belated summer evening was coming at last. the sun, very red and big, lowered on one side of her and high in the heavens the moon grew brighter. she came to a slough and drank. she gulped the water a moment, then raising her noble head, pricked her ears and listened, the water dripping from her mouth. it seemed to her that she had heard a coyote somewhere in the distance. she grew troubled and fearful again, running in her confusion beyond the hill where she should have turned.
instead of going right back she turned south and when she ran into the trail of blood that his open wound had left on the grass, she was quite some distance away from him. but she was on his trail and with her nose low to the ground she trotted along hopefully till she was suddenly startled by the hideous cry of a coyote. she stopped, completely terrified, and listened. a cry of a second coyote, nearer, responded to the first from the other side of the hill before her.
with a few bounds she was at the top of the hill. not a dozen feet down the slope sat a coyote over the lifeless body of her colt. he had eaten a great deal and was heavy with meat. he was so completely surprised that he could not move for a moment. it was too late to move. she was so close to him that he was afraid to turn. he bared his teeth in a feeble effort at defiance and snarled, but queen was too furious to think of herself. with all the strength of madness she hurled herself upon him and over him, leaping away in terror and carrying with her the sensation of hoof crushing bone. when she was quite certain that there was nothing pursuing her, she thought he had run away and so nervously trotted back to her baby.
she came back cautiously a step at a time, her eyes gleaming like burning coals, her skin quivering with fear. she saw the black shadowy mass that was her colt and then she made out a second black mass beside it. a few steps nearer and she began to feel that she had rendered the coyote motionless, but when she got quite close she saw the beast’s hind legs kick backward in the throes of death. queen did not know that he was dying, but she did know by the motionlessness of his head that she had him at a disadvantage and she approached with less fear and beat at him with her hoof just as she had many a time beaten a hole in the ice over a pond.
finally she revolted against a task so foreign to her nature and turned as if with sudden realisation of something overwhelmingly terrible, to the almost unrecognisable body of her foal. but she only sniffed once and sprang away with a snort and cry. round and round the hilltop she ran expressing the agony in her soul with loud and plaintive, fearful calls to which there was no answer in all the infinity of space.
the odours were maddening. the place became unbearable and in her soul the desire for the companionship of the herd flared up like a great light in the torturous darkness. it was as if she saw them somewhere in the gloomy spaces and running would bring her to them. so she loped and trotted northward, all night. at dawn, too weary to continue on her feet, she lay down to rest and as she rested she cropped the grass about her. a few hours of rest and she was ready to continue her anxious journey.
when toward noon she came to where the familiar woods appeared on the horizon queen accelerated her pace. it was there in that woods that the beloved little thing had come to her, and she loped as if she expected to find it there again. forgotten were all the aches in her muscles. what pain of body can outweigh the pain of mother mind at the loss of her baby? deny the animal all the finer emotions you like! mother love is too obvious a quality of the lowest animal life to be denied.
but the moment queen saw the familiar trees, the moment she entered the shadowy, fragrant atmosphere of the woods where the little thing had been born, the image of it, wandering about elusively in the solitude, came plaintively calling into her soul and she turned back upon the trail of sorrow. back over the plains she ran, as if her speed could save it, ran as if some evil man creature were carrying it away, running off with it, ahead of her, just out of sight.
an overwhelming sense of bodily weariness came over her at sundown and she lay down to sleep; and all through her heavy slumber, she pursued her elusive baby and struggled with monstrous man and hungry coyote.
