The prairie chickens now became the musicians of the morning and evening on the uplands, with their wild and intense and almost insane chorus, repeated over and over until it seemed as if the meaning of it must be forced upon every mind like a figure in music played with greatening power by a violinist so that the heart finally almost breaks with it—­“Ka-a-a-a-a-a, ka, ka, ka, ka! Ka-a-a-a-a-a-a, ka, ka, ka, ka, ka, ka, ka!  KA-A-A-A-A-A-A, ka, ka, ka, ka, ka, ka, ka, ka!”—­Oh, there is no way to tell it!—­And then the cock filled in the harmony with his lovely contribution:  facing the courted hen, he swelled out the great orange globes at the sides of his head, fluffed out his feathers, strutted forward a few steps, and tolled his deep-toned bell, with all the skill of a ventriloquist, making it seem far away when he was on a near-by knoll, like a velvet gong sounded with no stroke of the hammer, as if it spoke from some inward vibration set up by a mysterious current—­a liquid “Do, re, me,” here full and distinct, there afar off, the whole air tremulous with it, the harmony to the ceaseless fugue in the soprano clef of the rest of the flock—­nobody will ever hear it again!  Nobody ever drew from it, and from the howling of the wolves, the honking of the geese, the calls of the ducks, the strange cries of the cranes as they soared with motionless wings high overhead, or rowed their way on with long slow strokes of their great wings, or danced their strange reels and cotillions in the twilight; and from the myriad voices of curlew, plover, gopher, bob-o-link, meadowlark, dick-cissel, killdeer and the rest—­day-sounds and night-sounds, dawn-sounds and dusk-sounds—­more inspiration than did the stolid Dutch boy plodding west across Iowa that spring of 1855, with his fortune in his teams of cows, in the covered wagon they drew, and the deed to his farm in a flat packet of treasures in a little iron-bound trunk—­among them a rain-stained letter and a worn-out woman’s shoe.

2

I got the saleratus at Dyersville, and just as I came out of the little store which was, as I remember it, the only one there, I saw the Gowdy carriage come down the short street, the horses making an effort to prance under the skilful management of Pinck Johnson, who occupied the front seat alone, while Virginia Royall sat in the back seat with Buckner Gowdy, her arm about the upright of the cover, her left foot over the side as it might be in case of a person who was ready to jump out to escape the danger of a runaway, an overturn, or some other peril.

Gowdy did not recognize me, or if he did he did not speak to me.  He got out of the carriage and went first into the store, coming out presently with some packages in his hand which he tossed to the darky, and then he joined the crowd of men in front of the saloon across the way.  Soon I saw him go into the gin-mill, the crowd following him, and the noise of voices grew louder.  I had had enough experience with such things to know pretty well what was going on; the stink of spilled drinks, and profanity and indecency—­there was nothing in them to toll me in from the flowery prairie.