Sketches in Duneland. Earl H. Reed
H. R.
ILLUSTRATIONS
| The “Ancient” | Frontispiece | |
| Mt. Tom | Facing page | 24 |
| The Heron’s Pool | 40 | |
| “Omemee” | 50 | |
| The Moon in the Marsh | 66 | |
| “Holy Zeke” | 74 | |
| Mrs. Elvirey Smetters | 106 | |
| Bill Saunders | 134 | |
| The “Bogie House” | 150 | |
| “Na’cissus Jackson” | 164 | |
| The Requiem of the Leaves | 204 | |
| The Game Warden and his Deputy | 222 | |
| On the White Hills | 236 | |
| The Troopers of the Sky | 270 |
I
THE DREAM JEWEL
I
THE DREAM JEWEL
The tribe of the sturgeon was speeding southward over the rock-strewn floors of the inland sea. In the van of the swimming host its leader bore a wondrous stone. From it multicolored beams flashed out through the dim waters and into unsounded depths. Shapes, still and ghostly, with waving fins and solemn orbs, stared at the passing glow and vanished. Phantom-like forms faded quickly into dark recesses, and frightened schools of small fish fled away over pale sandy expanses. Clouds of fluttering gulls and terns followed the strange light that gleamed below the waves. Migrating birds, high in the night skies, wheeled with plaintive calls, for this new radiance was not of the world of wings and fins.
The wonder stone was being carried out of the Northland. For ages untold it had reposed in the heart of a stupendous glacier, that crept over the region of the great lakes from the roof of the world—from that vast frozen sea of desolation that is ghastly white and endless—under the corona of the Northern Lights.
From a cavern deep in ice, its prismatic rays had illumined the crystal labyrinths during the slow progress of the monster of the north, grinding and scarring the earth in its path of devastation.
The radiance from the stone was ineffable. Such color may have swept into the heavens on the world’s first morning, when the Spirit moved over the face of the waters, or have trembled in the halo at the Creation, when cosmos was evolved out of elemental fires.
It glowed in the awful stillness of its prison, untouched by the primeval storms that raged before the mammoths trod the earth, and before men of the stone age had learned the use of fire.
Many centuries after the greater part of the gigantic ice sheet had yielded to balmy airs, its frowning ramparts lingered along the wild shores of the north. The white silence was broken by reverberations from crumbling masses that crashed down the steeps into the billows that broke against the barrier. In one of the pieces the stone was borne away. The luminous lump drifted with the winds. It was nuzzled by curious rovers of the blue waters that rubbed gently along its sides and basked in the refulgence. With the final dissolution of the fragment, the stone was released.
In quest of new feeding grounds, the sturgeon had explored these frigid depths, and, after privation and fruitless wanderings, had gathered for the long retreat to a warmer clime. Their leader beheld the blazing gem falling, like a meteor, before him. With fateful instinct he seized it and moved grimly on. The gray horde saw the light from afar and streamed after it, as warriors might have followed the banner of a hero.
Through many miles of dark solitudes the bearer of the stone led his adventurous array. Swiftly moving fins took the sturgeon to waters where nature had been more merciful.
The roaring surf lines of the southern shore washed vast flat stretches of sand that were bleak and sterile, for no living green relieved the monotonous wilds.
A few Indians had been driven by warfare into this dreary land. Their wigwams were scattered along the coast, where they eked out a precarious existence from the spoil of the waters.
When the sturgeon came their lives were quickened with new energy. With their bark canoes and stone spears they found many victims among the tired fish. A wrinkled prophet, who had communed with the gods of his people, in a dream, had foretold the sending of a luminous stone, by a sturgeon, that would mark the beginning of an era of prosperity and happiness for his tribe. There was rejoicing when the lustre was seen among the waves. In the belief that the promised gift of the manitous had come, and the prophecy was fulfilled, the big fish was pursued with eagerness and finally captured. The long-awaited prize was carried in triumph to the lodge of the chief. The red men gathered in solemn council, and honors were heaped upon the aged seer whose vision had become true. After long deliberation, Flying Fawn, the loveliest maiden of the tribe, was appointed keeper of the stone. The lithe and beautiful barbarian child of nature clasped it to her budding breast, and departed into the wastes. With an invocation to her gods for its protection, she hid their precious gift far beyond the reach of prying eyes.
The winds carried myriads of flying grains to the chosen spot. They came in thin veils and little spirals over the barrens, and gathered, with many sweeps and swirls, into the mound that rose over the resting place of the stone. The army of the silent sands had become its guardian, for nevermore was its hiding place known.
The winds and the years sculptured the shifting masses into strange and bewildering forms. Trees, grasses, and flowers grew, and the hilltops were crowned with perennial garlands. The green sanctuaries were filled with melody.