Page:The Conquest.djvu/346

 re, the plaintive whippoorwill in the foliage lamented to the moon, meteors rose from the horizon to sweep majestically aloft and burst in a showering spray of gems below.

The very heavens were unfamiliar. Awed, impressed, by the mysteries around them, they slept.

Before sun-up the mocking-bird called from the highest treetop and continued singing until after breakfast, imitating the jay, the cardinal, and the lapwing, then sailing away into a strain of his own wild music.

At the mouth of the Wabash arks were turning in to old Vincennes. Below, broader grew the Ohio, unbroken forests still and twinkling stars. Here and there arose the graceful catalpa in full flower, and groves of cottonwoods so tall that at a distance one could fancy some planter's mansion hidden in their depths. Amid these Eden scenes appeared here and there the deserted cabin of some murdered woodman whose secret only the Shawnee knew.

Wild deer, crossing the Ohio, heard the bugle call, and throwing their long branching antlers on their shoulders sank out of sight, swimming under the water until the shore opened into the sheltering forest.

At times the heavens were darkened with the flights of pigeons; there was a song of the thrush and the echoing bellow of the big horned owl. Wild turkeys crossed their path and wild geese screamed on their journey to the lakes.

One day the boats stopped, and before her Julia beheld the Mississippi sweeping with irresistible pomp and wrath, tearing at the shores, bearing upon its tawny bosom the huge drift of mount and meadow, whole herds of drowned buffalo, trunks of forest trees and caved-in banks of silt, leaping, sweeping seaward in the sun. Without a pause the bridegroom river reached forth his brawny arm, and gathered in the starry-eyed Ohio. Over his Herculean shoulders waved her silver tresses, deep into his bosom passed her gentle transparency as the twain made one swept to the honeymoon.

All night Clark's bateau lay in a bend while York and the men kept off the drift that seemed to set toward them in their little cove as toward a