“You young palefaces that are within my heart know well what a path through the forest is, or what a track across the valley means, but the Indian calls these footways ‘a trail,’ and some trails are hard to follow.  They hide themselves in the wilderness, bury themselves in the swamps and swales, and sometimes a man or a buffalo must beat his own trail where never footstep has fallen before.  The Shadow Trail is not of these, and at some time every man must walk it.  I was a very small, very young brave when I first heard of it.  My grandsire used to tell me, just as I tell you now, of the wonder country through which it led, of the wise and knowing animals that had their lairs and dens beside it, of the royal birds that had their nests and eyries above it, of the white stars that hovered along its windings, of the small, whispering creatures of the night that made music with their cobweb wings.  These things all talk with a man as he takes the Shadow Trail; and the oftener they speak and sing to him, the higher climbs the trail; and, if he listens long enough to their voices, he will find the trail has lifted its curving way aloft until it creeps along the summit of the mountains, not at their base.  It is here that the stars come close, and the singing is hushed in the great, white silence of the heights; but only he who listens to the wise animals and the eagles and the gauzy-winged insects will ever climb so high.  This is the Shadow Trail the wild geese take on their April flight to the north, as, honking through the rain-warm nights, they interweave their wings with the calling wind.  They leave no footprints to show whither they go, for the northing bird is wise.

“This is the Shadow Trail that countless buffaloes thundered through when, hunted by the white men, they journeyed into the great unknown.  Wise men who are nearing the height of the trail say they can hear the booming of myriad hoofs, and see the tossing of unnumbered horns as the herds of bison yet travel far ahead.  This is the Shadow Trail the Northern Lights dance upon, shimmering and pale and silvery.  We Indians call them the ‘Dead Men’s Fingers,’ though sometimes they pour out in great splashes of cold blue, of poisonous-looking purple, of burning crimson and orange.  We speak of them then as the ’Sky Flowers of the North,’ that scatter their deathless masses along the lifting way.

“And this is the Shadow Trail the red man has followed these many, many moons.  His moccasined feet have climbed the heights silently, slowly, firmly.  He knows it will lead beyond the canyons, beyond the crests; that behind the mountains it merges into a vast valley of untold beauty.  We Indians call it ‘the Happy Hunting Grounds.’