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The October sun was setting over a wild, wide waste of waving grass, growing dry and yellow in the autumn winds. The scarlet hips gleamed between the whitening blades wherever the pale pink roses of summer had shed their fragrant leaves. But now the brief Indian summer was drawing to its close, and winter was coming down upon that vast Canadian plain with rapid strides.
The wailing cry of the wild geese rang through the gathering stillness. The driver of a rough Red River cart slapped the boy by his side upon the shoulder, and bade him look aloft at the swiftly-moving cloud of chattering beaks and waving wings.
For a moment or two the twilight sky was darkened, and the air was filled with the restless beat of countless pinions. The flight of the wild geese to the warmer south told the same story, of approaching snow, to the bluff carter. He muttered something about finding the cows which his young companion did not understand.
The boy's eyes had travelled from the winged files of retreating geese to the vast expanse of sky and plain. The west was all aglow with myriad tints of gold and saffron and green, reflected back from many a gleaming lakelet and curving river, which shone like jewels on the broad breast of the grassy ocean.
Where the dim sky-line faded into darkness the Touchwood Hills cast a blackness of shadow on the numerous thickets which fringed their sheltering slopes. Onward stole the darkness, while the prairie fires shot up in wavy lines, like giant fireworks.
