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.'
"Only one person ever returns from the 'Shadow Trail,' and he comes
once a year on this night--Christmas Eve. The stars wake and sing as he
passes, the Sky Flowers of the North surround him on his journey from
the summits to this valley where we live. He is a little Child, who was
born hundreds of years ago in a manger beneath the Eastern stars, in the
Land of Morning.
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