Annette - The Metis Spy

Stephens objected to the Cree boys doing the drudgery, but Annette

besought ham so sweetly with her eyes to let "the little scouts" do

it, that he desisted. His glance, as he followed every movement of

the maiden, had as much of mute adoration, reverent and tender, as

ever has been seen in the eyes of a man. How little he had known the

worth of this girl, when he toyed with her hair and put a straw into

her dimples at her father's house! I suppose he regarded her as

thoughtful men regard most girls before they become enslaved either

to their fascination or their gifts. I do not care to write an

ungallant speech, but I do say that I have so far in life looked upon

men much as I do upon women; and I assume every man to be a fool till

he has proven himself otherwise to me.

The sun was setting when the order to saddle was given; and with the

two scouts leading, the party set out along nearly the same route by

which they had come in the morning. A darkness that, without a flight

of imagination, might be called "dense," pressed upon the prairie,

and only a few small and feeble points of star-light were to be seen.

But on a sudden a mellow, green-tinted light burst out of the

northern sky with a brightness that showed the startled expression

upon every face. The horses pricked up their ears, and looked for a

moment at the radiant, quivering, northern sky.

I have not bothered my readers with much description so far, and I

trust that they will forgive me if I pause for a moment to do so now.

After this great, aerial conflagration had continued for the space of

five minutes, the light went out from the whole sky as suddenly and

as entirely as though it were a lamp which some one had extinguished.

After a few seconds of darkness, here and there a long rib of yellow

light appeared; then these disappeared, and once more the party was

in the pitchy dusk. Suddenly, however, fully half the heavens burst

into flame again.

In the south the light was soft, and seemed unconnected with that of

the east and north. The whole would remain for a few seconds

quiescent, save for some slight, erratic pulsations, but all would at

once madly undulate and quiver from end to end. It seemed at such

times like a mighty cloth woven of the finest and softest floss,

being violently shaken at both ends by invisible hands. But the most

curious part of the phenomena was the noise, like the cracking of

innumerable whips, which accompanied the pulsations in the auroral

flame. [Footnote: Captain Huysbe mentions having heard this peculiar

noise during auroral displays in the North-West; and Mr. Charles Mair

and other authorities add their testimony to the same fact.--E. C.]

The corruscations were produced in the valleys, among the bluffs, and

far out over the face of the prairie. To lend terror to the

stupendous and awful beauty of the scene, a ball of fire came out of

the southern sky, passed slowly across the belt of agitated flame,

and disappeared over the crest of a distant hill.