The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail

Overhead the stars were still twinkling far in the western sky. The crescent moon still shone serene, marshaling her attendant constellations. Eastward the prairie still lay in deep shadow, its long rolls outlined by the deeper shadows lying in the hollows between. Over the Bow and the Elbow mists hung like white veils swathing the faces of the rampart hills north and south. In the little town a stillness reigned as of death, for at length Calgary was asleep, and sound asleep would remain for hours to come.

Not so the world about. Through the dead stillness of the waning night the liquid note of the adventurous meadow lark fell like the dropping of a silver stream into the pool below. Brave little heart, roused from slumber perchance by domestic care, perchance by the first burdening presage of the long fall flight waiting her sturdy careless brood, perchance stirred by the first thrill of the Event approaching from the east.