for several days after the woman had relieved her of the racking burden of straps and iron and wire-net, dora was troubled by the conflict of recurrent impulses to go back to the farm yard and the fears that just as ardently urged her to get far out of the reach of man. months of arduous toil followed by weeks of semi-starvation had robbed her of her strength and her courage; the barn had so enervated her that she found the cold, out doors, especially at night, very hard to endure; and her captivity had deprived her of her companions without whom life was not worth the struggle.
one snow flurry followed another. the last spot of exposed earth disappeared. the sun did not show itself for days and every hour seemed to deepen the drifts. never had the world seemed so bleak and inhospitable to her.
she was so miserably cold one windy night that she decided at last to go back to the farmyard where she had been so magnanimously befriended. she got up toward the end of the long night and started away, lumbering along for many miles in the dark, driven by the image of the sheltering barn; and then she stopped suddenly as the other image, that of the woman driving her away, came into her mind. she stood still, unable to decide what to do and as she stood the reddish streak in the south east grew brighter and less red.
she became very cold, having stood so long, and started off again more for want of exercise than through any definite decision, and as she neared the top of a wild rose bush that protruded from a deep drift, a rabbit sprang out of its shadow and bounded away to the south. dora stopped through momentary fright, and followed him with her eyes as he fled. she missed him when he was swallowed up in the great ocean of whiteness and searching for him suddenly discovered a group of horses on the ridge of a long hill, their dark bodies cut clearly against the end of the light streak in the sky.
dora did not stop for her breakfast. her eyes lighted up, her nostrils distended and her thin legs plowed through the snows as if their old strength had fully come back to them. there were many hills and valleys lost to the sight in the level whiteness and, crossing them over-anxiously, she was obliged to stop a few times to rest and to regain her breath, before at last she reached the horses, by that time down the side of the hill.
there were about a dozen of them spread out considerably. while yet some distance from them, she thought she recognised some of her old friends, but as she came nearer she was overwhelmed with doubt. they were pawing the snow very energetically and took little interest in her fervent greetings. one or two heads raised up a moment, then went back to the business of finding grass which the rest would not interrupt even for that short time. this reception was a great disappointment to dora, but there were other disappointments in store for her.
the three horses to whom she was nearest, watched her approach with suspicion. they were, all three, hard working horses, who found the pawing of snow a laborious task. they thought she meant to eat from their find and drove her off with threats of angry whinnies and laying ears. one of them, a miserable old nag, a red mare with two naked scars on her shoulders, jumped across the hole she had dug, ran after dora and nipped her haunches several times, as poor dora fled from her.
dora stopped running about a hundred yards from there, looked back at the old nag and, seeing that she had returned to pawing, began to paw the snow where she was. when she got to the grass and had taken a mouthful, she raised her head and stared at the group, wondering what had happened to the beautiful world from which she had been abducted by man. she could not make out why that old nag had been so intent upon hurting her. dora did not know of those differences in temperament which makes one creature mellow and sympathetic after an experience of great suffering and another sour and pugnacious.
her reception was a sad disappointment to dora, but even that companionship was better than none. so she clung to it with all her strength, content to move about on the outer edge of the group. when the herd had fed well and for exercise started across the snows, dora always went with them, running with every ounce of energy in her body, striving through her old revived habit to get to the lead; but dora soon realised that these were not the days of her supremacy. strive as she would, she could not keep up with even the poorest plug and long before the others were ready to quit, she was obliged to drop out of the race, humiliated and unhappy, puffing and panting for breath.
nevertheless, she took part in every race. every time she made the same strenuous attempt to do the impossible. the youngsters of two and three years of age fairly laughed at her, reaching her while she struggled with might and main and leaving her behind with a few easy bounds. but it is a poor effort that accomplishes no result whatever, and though she could at no time outrun the younger horses, she daily managed to leave some older horse behind her.
one day she tried her old trick. very early in the race she happened to be in the lead, having started the race. when the younger horses saw her leading a few of the old plugs, they started after her, soon, of course, overtaking her. dora swerved to the side, in the hope that they would follow her, and found herself alone. they not only refused to follow her but they did not even look back to see what had happened to her. dora was so unhappy she started off again after them, but soon stopped, realising that she could not catch up to them and that she would soon be out of breath once more. she stood still a while and watched them enviously. then she turned, intending to paw the snow for grass, when she saw another group of horses coming from the southeast.
dora raised her head and looked with absorbed interest. the wind lifted her mane and fluttered it gracefully in the air. for a few moments, absorbed in the creatures that moved toward her in single file, she looked like queen once more in all the glory of her regency. when they were a hundred yards away, queen neighed with all her strength. at once the marching line stopped and all heads went up high in the air. then from the rear of the line a white horse broke from the path he had been following and with a call of recognition started hastily toward her. it was white-black and, with a strength born of the very sight of him, queen loped to meet him.
four of the other horses recognized her, too, and the air vibrated with the music of that happy reunion. noses touched noses and happy whinnies greeted happy whinnies. with the five of them had come a young mother, a sorrel mare with a fuzzy little colt who had been born in the spring. when the others had gone to meet queen she remained in her tracks, hesitating to get into any kind of an assembly where through joy or anger her colt might be hurt. he stood right behind her, his fuzzy little head against her haunch, his eyes filled with wonderment.
when dora had greeted her old friends, she went to greet the mother and her colt, running her old muzzle, on which were still the marks of her struggle with the basket, down the fuzzy little fellow’s forehead, murmuring tremulously. the proud young mother looked on almost eagerly and commented softly and good-naturedly.
but when the big group returned there was dissention at once. the ugly red mare seemed to think that there was entirely too much fuss made over queen, and turned upon her with open mouth. white-black, right behind the old nag, nipped her severely. a quarrel followed which spread to the rest of the group and finally ended in a race which divided the two groups, dora going off with her friends. all day the two groups dug the snow a goodly distance apart and in the evening came the worst storm of the season.
the storm approached quite suddenly, though all day there had been vague signs of its coming. a northern gale blew up, tearing the weaker branches from the trees and sending them sliding over the surface of the snow, tearing up the looser snow and blowing it into their eyes and ears and nostrils. queen led her group to a fairly sheltered spot in among the trees near by and together they lay down.
the warmth of their bodies, one touching the other, was so comforting that the slightest move on the part of any one of them brought a low, patient protest from the rest. the night came rapidly. the wind grew more and more furious, howling and shrieking overhead, and the tall poplars groaned as they bent with its lashing. gusts of wind, loaded with snow, which it raised on the open, struck the trees and the snow fell in powder upon them below, covering them as with a blanket.
in the open the savage north wind went mad. it tore along at a terrific rate, taking everything that was loose with it, then, as if it had in its savage eagerness fallen over itself, there was a pause for a moment, after which, picking itself up again, it went on with even greater ferocity, shrieking as with some ineffable, primordial pain. it seized the fallen snow and whirled it around with the falling snow, scattered it high in the air, lifting it again when it had fallen and sending it like waves across the plains, gathering great showers of it and hurling them against the wall of the woods, sending these showers down upon the tree tops, tearing it all up again as soon as it had fallen into drifts below and once more hurling the restless dust into space—a display of insane, futile effort—a cosmic passion bereft of purpose.
but if this wild night could have been wilder and had raved with even more threat in its raving, it could not have diluted the contentment in queen’s heart. the touch and the subtler feeling of the presence of her companions did as much to keep her warm as the heat of their bodies, and, like a light, illumined the long trail of life behind her. she moved through the corridor of her past like a curious child, walking in its sleep and dreaming of a beautiful, incoherent fairyland. the light was silvery as that of the moon and in the shadows detached images which she only half recognised glistened like reflections on the snow. and when dawn ushered in a calm day, queen rose with a feeling like that of having returned home from a long visit and shook the snow from her body.
queen knew the country there as none other knew it. leading the little group to the best feeding grounds, she took her place once more at the head, for at the head only could queen be happy. in spite of the deep snows through which they were obliged to plow to get their food, queen began to fill out rapidly and the greater part of her old strength came back to her. with the return of her strength came the old fear of man. every move was accompanied by an investigation and in every sound of wind and tree she seemed to hear the sound of a voice.
there followed a long period of fair weather in which the snows hardened and shrank and then one day, as they were digging for grass, they were surprised by three men on horseback on a hill to the south and east, less than a quarter of a mile away. the horsemen had come upon them so suddenly that queen, confounded, stood looking at them a few minutes, transfixed with fear. she recognised the man who had captured her on the big horse that had worked beside her in the plow. next to him was the boy on the little bay mare and his cry of “there she is!” fully aroused queen.
the little herd, however, had no difficulty in getting away from them, because they had no burdens on their backs and they were now more used to the deep snows on the open plains than the horses that were chasing them. the horsemen kept behind them for a long while and then disappeared. but queen was too wise to end her flight there. she knew that even though the men gave up the chase that day they would appear again the next, or soon after that.
out of the misery and discomfort of her captivity she had just emerged. she had found her companions and the life for which she had hungered all through those unhappy months. hardly had she realised the full extent of her good fortune when man reappeared to take it all away from her. but queen was in no submissive mood. she had fought for her freedom and she would fight again. she would watch with such care that she would not again be caught at a disadvantage. she hardly gave herself time to eat. her ears were constantly pricked high. her eyes, afire with her emotions, never for a moment abandoned their vigilance. but her nervous dread of man soured the sweetness of the wilds and queen moved over the snows with the old feeling of the trap beating in her heart, moved without resting and, out of habit, moved northward.
they came next day to the strip of woodland whose heroic poplars silently guard the saskatchewan. there they stopped and there the full horror of the trap took possession of queen. she was afraid of her own shadow and the slightest sound startled her. a partridge drumming in the woods sent her madly loping through space.
the winter evening came early. the distant sun lowered in the southwest with a sad, yellow glare; and in the north a gleaming, pearly streak foretold a brilliant display of northern lights. that streak interested queen and she watched it as the darkness thickened, and as she watched it, looking up from time to time, it grew brighter. faint shimmering colours appeared at the eastern end of the streak and slowly moved across it to the west, vanishing in the west and reappearing brighter in the east. many times she had seen these lights, but only once, somewhere in her half-forgotten childhood, had she seen them so bright and so fascinating.
they were standing directly in front of a cleft in the shadowy wall of trees. the cleft led like a roadway to the banks and the river below. there they could see more of the lights, the portion that glowed in the lower part of the sky and danced about over the shadowy tops of the trees on the other shore.
it was during a moment when the lights were so compelling that all of them had stopped to look when there appeared in the cleft the giant body of a moose, his antlers like a magnificent oak cut clearly against the scintillating colours of the aurora borealis. his coming had been so swift, so sudden and so imperceptible that it took them some time to realise that a living thing stood within a few yards of them, looking at them. the herd hastily retreated a short distance; but as soon as they stopped to look back the enormous animal got frightened, turned and vanished down the banks.
queen was very curious. she trotted carefully after him and the rest of the herd kept to her tracks. when queen’s head appeared where the plains turn over the banks, the moose looked up at her a moment and then like a rabbit shot straight across the river. beyond the centre of the frozen river he stopped for a moment to look back once more, then leaped on and vanished in the woods beyond, leaving behind him, across the ice of the erstwhile invincible saskatchewan the defiant shadow of his trail.
an overwhelming impulse flared up in queen’s soul. a great confusion of fear and hope seized upon her heart. so nervous that every muscle in her body trembled, she made her way down the banks and with infinite fear and caution she took the trail of the moose. she walked along slowly and very carefully and stopped often to take bites of the snow on the ice as if she were testing it and at the same time trying to quench the fires that were burning within her. the others hesitated a moment, but when they saw her nearly half way across, they faithfully followed her.
in the woods north of the river, they camped for the night. next day they went on, penetrating the woods and following the trail of the moose till they came upon an open space a mile beyond the river. there they remained for the rest of the winter, feeding upon grass the like of which they had only at rare times come upon.
succeeding snowfalls covered their tracks and when spring came, melting the snows and filling the desolate hollows with quivering, rippling ponds, loading the lonely air with the whir of duck wings and the happier honking of geese, the roar of the swollen saskatchewan had placed the final seal upon their emancipation.
and here the story of queen dora must end, for in that new world beyond the trail of the moose her struggle against the usurpation of man was over. it was long after her generation that man ventured into that desolate region where she found perfect happiness, as perfect a happiness as may come to living things. grass and water, leisure and activity, companionship and security, these were all queen asked of life, and these were as free in those unfenced wilds as the air and as limitless in their abundance. no enemies, no contention, preferences without hatred, joyous play and eternal good will, she looked toward each coming moment with no fear; while the glowing sensations of fading yesterdays only sweetened the music of her existence.
