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To the north spreads upward, and backward to its summit, the vast bank of the river, varied as to surface by rounded bare hills and valleys and flats sprinkled with aspens, cherries, and saskatoons, the latter loaded with ripe fruit. The banks of the Peace River are a country in themselves, in which, particularly on the north side, numerous homesteads might be, and indeed have been, carved out.
At this time of year all the bears come out of the mountains and feed along the valleys on red willow buds and such things. They even swim from the shore to the islands, in search of willow flats. Besides, there are plenty of saskatoons, I don't doubt, not far back from the river.
He rode away, and George thought no more of the matter for several days. Then as he was riding home with Edgar from a visit to a neighbor who had a team to sell, they stopped to rest a few minutes in the shade of a poplar bluff. It was fiercely hot on the prairie, but the wood was dim and cool, and George followed Edgar through it in search of saskatoons.
Crimson flowers flecked the prairie grass, the wild barley waved its bristling ears along the trails, saskatoons glowed red in the shadows of each bluff. Day by day swift-moving clouds cast flitting shadows across the sun-scorched plain, but though they shed no moisture the wheat stood nearly waist-high upon the Marston farm. The sand that whirled about it did the strong stalks no harm.
Everywhere there was plenty. The blueberries, the blackberries, the mountain-ash and the saskatoons were ripe; tree and vine were bent low with their burden of fruit. The grass was green and tender from the summer rains.
Roaring Bill halted on the river brink and stripped his horses clean, though it was but two in the afternoon and their midday fire less than an hour extinguished. She watched him curiously. When his packs were off he beckoned her. "Hold them a minute," he said, and put the lead ropes in her hand. Then he went up the bank into a thicket of saskatoons.
An hour or two later Muriel went out on the prairie and walked toward a poplar bluff, in the shadow of which she gathered ripe red saskatoons, and then sat down to look about. The dazzling blue of the sky was broken by rounded masses of silver-edged clouds that drove along before a fresh northwest breeze.
The point itself was covered with strawberry vines and dotted with clumps of saskatoons all in bloom. It was a lovely and lonely spot, which was soon converted into a scene of eating and laughter, and a drying ground for wet clothes. Towards evening Bishop Grouard and Father Lacombe held a well-attended service, which in this profound wilderness was peculiarly impressive.
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