Le Chef Falls in Love with the Half-Breed Maiden

The sun was hanging low in the clear blue over the prairie, as two
riders hurried their ponies along a blind trail toward a distant
range of purple hills that lay like sleepy watchers along the banks
of the Red River.

The beasts must have ridden far, for their flanks were white with
foam, and their riders were splashed with froth and mud, "The day is nearly done, mon ami," said one, stretching out his arm
and measuring the height of the sun from the horizon. "How red it is;
and mark these blood-stains upon its face! It gives warning to the
tyrants who oppress these fair plains; but they cannot read the
signs."

There was not a motion anywhere in all the heavens, and the only
sound that broke the stillness was the dull trample of the ponies'
hoofs upon the sod. On either side was the wide level prairie,
covered with thick, tall grass, through which blazed the purple,
crimson and garnet blooms, of vetch and wild pease. The tiger lily,
too, rose here and there like a sturdy queen of beauty with its great
terra cotta petals, specked with umber-brown. Here and there, also,
upon the mellow level, stood a clump of poplars or white oaks--prim
like virgins without suitors, with their robes drawn close about
them; but when over the unmeasured plain the wind blew, they bowed
their heads gracefully, as a company of eastern girls when the king
commands.