It
shone bright on the darkness of the grass, a cordon of flame that some
kindly magician had drawn about the resting place of the tired camp.
With the night pressing on its edges it was a tiny nucleus of life
dropped down between the immemorial plains and the ancient river. Home
was here in the pitched tents, a hearthstone in the flame lapping on
the singed grass, humanity in the loud welcome that rose to meet the
newcomers. The doctor had known but one member of the Company, its
organizer, a farmer from the Mohawk Valley. But the men, dropping
their ox yokes and water pails, crowded forward, laughing deep-mouthed
greetings from the bush of their beards, and extending hands as hard as
the road they had traveled.
The women were cooking. Like goddesses of the waste places they stood
around the fires, a line of half-defined shapes. Films of smoke blew
across them, obscured and revealed them, and round about them savory
odors rose. Fat spit in the pans, coffee bubbled in blackened pots,
and strips of buffalo meat impaled on sticks sent a dribble of flame to
the heat. The light was strong on their faces, lifted in greeting,
lips smiling, eyes full of friendly curiosity.
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