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diff --git a/old/53073-0.txt b/old/53073-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0e7d712..0000000 --- a/old/53073-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2733 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of God's Country; The Trail to Happiness, by -James Oliver Curwood - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: God's Country; The Trail to Happiness - -Author: James Oliver Curwood - -Release Date: September 17, 2016 [EBook #53073] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD'S COUNTRY; TRAIL TO HAPPINESS *** - - - - -Produced by Roger Frank, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - - - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes: - -Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - -Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end. - - * * * * * - - - - -GOD’S COUNTRY _The Trail to Happiness_ - - - _By_ - JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD - _Author of_ - The Valley of Silent Men - The River’s End, etc. - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - Cosmopolitan Book Corporation - MCMXXI - - * * * * * - - Copyright, 1921, by - COSMOPOLITAN BOOK CORPORATION - - _All rights reserved, including that of translation - into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian_ - - _PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA_ - - The Quinn & Boden Company - BOOK MANUFACTURERS - RAHWAY NEW JERSEY - - - - -The Four Trails to Happiness - - - PAGE - - _The First Trail_ MY SECRET OF HAPPINESS 3 - - _The Second Trail_ I BECOME A KILLER 29 - - _The Third Trail_ MY BROTHERHOOD 53 - - _The Fourth Trail_ THE ROAD TO FAITH 83 - - * * * * * - -_The First Trail_ MY SECRET OF HAPPINESS - - * * * * * - - - - -_The First Trail_ MY SECRET OF HAPPINESS - - -To-night I am in a little cabin in the heart of a great wilderness. -Outside it is dark. I can hear the wind sighing in the thick spruce -tops. I hear the laughter of a stream out of which I took my supper -of trout. The People of the Night are awake, for a little while ago I -heard a wolf howl, and, not far away, in an old stub, lives an owl that -hoots at the light in my window. I think it’s going to storm. There -is a heaviness in the air, and, in the drowse of it, the sweetness of -distant rain. - -I am strangely contented as I start the writing of this strangest of -all the things I have written. I had never thought to give voice to the -things that I am about to put on paper; yet have I dreamed that every -soul in the world might know of them. But the task has seemed too great -for me, and I have kept them within myself, expecting them to live and -die there. - -I am contented on this black night, with its promise of storm, for -many reasons--though I am in the heart of a peopleless forest fifteen -hundred miles from my city home. In the first place, I have built, -with my own hands, this cabin that shelters me. My palms are still -blistered by the helve of the ax. I am the architect of the fireplace -of stone and mud in which a small fire burns for cheer, though it is -late spring, with summer in the breath of the forests. I have made the -chair in which I sit and the table on which I write, and the builder of -a marble palace could take no greater pleasure in his achievement than -have I. - -I am contented because, just now, I have the strange conviction that, -in this wild and peopleless place, I am very close to that which many -peoples have sought through many ages and have not found. - -In the distance, I can hear thunder, and a flash of lightning illumines -my window. A cry of a loon comes with the flash. It is strange; it -is weird--and wonderful. And also, in a way, it has just occurred -to me that it is a fitting kind of night to begin that which I have -been asked to write. For this night, for a short space, will be like -the great world at large--a world that is rocking in the throes of a -mighty tumult--a tumult of unrest, of discontent, of mad strivings, -of despair, and lack of faith--a world that is rushing blindfold into -unknown things, that is seeking rest and peace, yet can never find them. - -It is, I repeat, a strange night to begin the writing of that which I -have been asked to write, and yet I do not think that I would have the -night changed. It seems to picture to me more vividly the unrest of the -world fifteen hundred miles away--and fifteen thousand miles away. I -seem to see with clearer vision what has happened during the past two -years--the mad questing of a thousand million people for a spiritual -thing which they cannot find. I see, from this vantage-point of the -deep forest, a world torn by five hundred schisms and religions, and I -see not one religion that fills the soul with faith and confidence. I -see the multitudes of the earth reaching up their arms and crying for -the Great Mystery of life to be solved. Questions that are racking the -earth come to me in the whisperings of the approaching storm. Can the -ghosts of the dead return? Can the spirits of the departed commune with -the living? Is the world on the edge of an inundation of spiritualism? -Does the salvation of humanity lie there--or there--or there? What -shall I believe? What _can_ I believe? - -The rain is beginning to beat on the roof of my cabin and, in number, -the drops of the rain remind me of the millions and the tens of -millions of restless men and women who are reading avidly, in the pages -of magazines and books, the “experiences” of those who are giving voice -to new creeds and new beliefs or reviving old ones long lost in the -dust of forgotten ages. - -Ghosts have been revived; spirits are on the move again. New -generations are drinking in with wonder and suspense the whole bagful -of tricks worn out ten thousand generations ago. To-morrow it may be -the revival of witchcraft. And the next day new prophets may arise -and new religions take the place of the old. For so travel the minds -of men; and so they have traveled for hundreds of thousands of years -before Christ was born and Christianity was known; and so they will go -on seeking until God is found in a form so simple and intimate that all -humanity will at last understand. - -The storm has broken. It is like a deluge over the cabin. The thunder -and crash of it is in the spruce tops--and such is the dreadfulness of -the tumult and the aloneness of the place that I am in, that I would -cease where I am did I think that anything I am about to say might be -sacrilege. But when a mind gives expression to that which it holds as -truth, there cannot be sacrilege. - -I have been asked to put on paper something of that religion which I -have discovered for myself in nature. There are many who will laugh; -there are many who will disbelieve, for it will be impossible for me to -make myself entirely clear in such a matter as this. For I have found -what, to me, is God; and I cannot expect to startle the world, even -if I desired to do so, for what I have found has been found in a very -simple way--without bringing spirits back from the dead, or hearing -voices out of tombs, or gathering faith through the inspiration of -mediums. - -I have found the heart of nature. I believe that its doors have -opened to me, and that I have learned much of its language. Through -adventure and bloodshed I have come to a great understanding; and -understanding has brought me health and faith and a joy in life. And -because these things will do the world no harm, and may do some good, -I am undertaking to write the story of a great and inclusive God whom -men and women and little children should be made to know, but to -whom, unfortunately, the swift pace of the times has made most of us -strangers. - -I fear that I am going to shock many people, and so I am of a mind -to get the shock over with and come to the meat of what I have to -say. But I shall start with something which those who read this must -concede--that everyone in the world seems to be looking for something -which will bring him more comfort and more happiness from life. That, -I think, is the reason the Catholic Church is the only Church which -is growing to any extent. It is growing because it is the only Church -which is holding out its arms as a mother and giving a human being a -breast upon which to lay his head when he is in trouble. Yet I am not -a Catholic. Neither am I a Protestant. I do not belong to the High, -Low, Broad, or Free Church. I do not confess to Romanism, Popery, or -Protestantism any more than I do to Mohammedanism, Calvinism, or the -doctrines of the Latter-Day Saints. I am not a sectarian any more -than I am a Shaker or a Restitutionist. I do not believe that one -necessarily goes to hell because he does not accept Christ as the Son -of God. I believe that Christ was a good man and a great teacher of -his times, just as there have been other good men and great teachers -in their times. I can look upon the Mussulman at prayer, or the Parsee -at his devotion, or the Eskimo calling upon his unseen spirits with -the same feeling of brotherhood and understanding that I can see a -congregation of Baptists or Methodists singing their praise to the God -on high. I do not pity or condemn the African savage and the Indian of -the Great Barrens because they see their God through another vision -than that of the Christian. There were many roads that led to old Rome. -And there are many roads, no matter how twisted and dark they seem to -us, that lead to the better after-life. - -I wish that some mighty power would rise that could show to man how -little and how insignificant he is. Only therein, I think, could the -thorns and brambles be taken out of that path to peace and contentment -which he would like to find, and would find if he were not blinded -by his own importance. He is the supreme egoist and monopolist. His -conceit and self-sufficiency are at times almost blasphemous. He is -the human peacock, puffed up, inflated, flushed in the conviction -_that everything in the universe was made for him_. He looks down in -supercilious lordship on all other life in creation. He goes out and -murders millions of his kind with his scientific inventions; yet he -calls a tiger bad and a pest because the tiger occasionally kills the -two-legged thing that hunts it. If he kills a man illegally, it is -called murder, and he is hanged and goes to hell. If his government -tells him it is proper to kill a thousand men, he kills them, and is -called a hero--and a chosen place is kept waiting for him in heaven. -His conceit blinds him to fact. He thinks our little earth was the -chosen creation of the Supreme Power--forgetting that the earth is -but a fly-speck compared with the other worlds in space. He thinks -that Christ was born a long time ago, and that time began with our own -knowledge of history--when, as a matter of fact, he has no reason for -disbelieving that man lived and died hundreds of thousands of years -ago, and that countless religions have come and gone in the eons of the -past. He does not stop to reason that, in number, he is as a drop in -the ocean compared with other beating hearts on earth. - -To me, every heart that beats is a spark from the breath of God. I -believe that the warm and beating heart in the breast of a singing -robin is as precious to the Creator of things as the heart of a man -counting money. I believe that a vital spark exists in every blade of -grass and in every leaf of the trees. It is the great law of existence -that life must destroy in order to live, and when destruction is -inevitable and necessary, it ceases to be a misdemeanor. But to let -live, when it is not necessary to destroy, is a beautiful thing to -consider. - -Before men find a satisfying faith and peace, they must come to see -their own littleness. They must discover that they are not _alone_ in -a partnership with God, but that all manifestation of life, whether in -tree or flower or flesh and blood, is a spark loaned for a space by -that Supreme Power toward which we all, in our individual ways, are -groping. There is one teacher very close to us, as close to the poor -as to the rich, to show us this littleness and make us understand. -That teacher is nature--and, in my understanding of things, all nature -is rest and peace. I believe that nature is the Great Doctor, and, if -given the chance, can cure more ills and fill more empty souls than all -the physicians and preachers of the earth. I have had people say to me -that my creed is a beautiful one for a person as fortunately situated -as myself, but that it is impossible for the great multitudes to go out -and find nature as I have found it. To these people, I say that one -need not make a two-thousand-mile trip along the Arctic coast and live -with the Eskimo to find nature. After all, it is our nerves that kill -us in the long run, our over-restless minds, our worrying, questing -brains. And nature whispers its great peace to these things even in -the rustling leaves of a corn field--if one will only get acquainted -with that nature. And my desire--my ambition--the great goal I wish to -achieve in my writings is to take my readers with me into the heart of -this nature. I love it, and I feel that they must love it--if I can -only get the two acquainted. - -“Fine line of talk for a man whose home is filled from cellar to garret -with mounted heads and furs,” I hear some of my good friends say. - -Quite true, too. It is hard for one to confess oneself a murderer, and -it is still harder to explain one’s regeneration. Yet, to be genuine, I -must at least make the confession, though it is less the fact of murder -than the fact of regeneration that I have the inclination to emphasize, -now that I have the opportunity. There was a time when I took pride -in the wideness and diversity of my killings. I was a destroyer of -life. Now I am only glad that these killings ultimately brought me to a -discovery which is the finest thing I have to contemplate through the -rest of my existence. - -In my home are twenty-seven guns, and all of them have been used. -Many of the stocks are scarred with tiny notches whereby I kept track -of my “kills.” With them, I have left red trails to Hudson’s Bay, to -the Barren Lands, to the country of the Athabasca and the Great Bear, -to the Arctic Ocean, to the Yukon and Alaska, and throughout British -Columbia. This is not intended as a pæan of triumph. It is a fact which -I wish had never existed. And yet it may be that my love of nature and -the wild things, at the last, is greater because of those reckless -years of killing. I am inclined to believe so. In my pantheistic heart, -the mounted heads in my home are no longer crowned with the grandeur -of trophies, but rather with the nobility of martyrs. I love them. I -commune with them. I am no longer their enemy, and I warm myself with -the belief that they know I am fighting for them now. - -In this religion of the open, I have come to understand and gather -peace from the whispering voices and even the silence of all God-loving -things. I have learned to love trees, and there are times when I put -my hands on them because I love them, and rest my head against them -because they are comrades and their comradeship and their might give -me courage. There is a gnarled old cripple of an oak in the yard of -my Michigan home, a broken and twisted dwarf which many people have -told me to destroy. But that tree and I have “talked over” many things -together; it has pointed out to me how to stand up under adversity, -has shown me how to put up a man’s fight. For, eaten to the heart, a -deformity among its kind, each spring and summer saw it making its -valiant struggle to “do its best.” It was then I became its friend, -gave it a helping hand, stopped its decay and death, and each season -now the old oak is stronger, and often I go out and sit with my back -against it, and I hear and understand its voice, and I know that it is -a great friend that will never do me wrong. - -It is thus that this religion of mine finds its strength from the -sources of great and unknown power. But before it comes in all its -peace and joy, man must bring down his head from out of the clouds of -egoism, and say, “The oak is as great as I--perhaps greater.” - -Not long ago, it seemed to me that my world had gone dark and that it -would never grow completely light again. In perhaps the darkest hour, -I flung myself down upon the ground close to the bank of a stream. And -then, close over my head--so close I could have tossed a pebble to -it--a warbler near burst its little throat in song. And the miracle of -it was that it was a dark and sunless day. But the warbler sang, and -then he chirped in the boughs above; and when I looked at the ground -beside me again, I saw there, peeping up at me out of the grass, a -single violet. And the bird and the violet gave me more courage and -cleared my world for me more than all the human friends who had told me -they were sorry. The violet said, “I am still here; you will never lose -me,” and the little warbler said, “I will always sing--through all the -years you live.” And stronger than ever came the faith in me that these -things were no more an accident of creation than man himself. - -Once I saw this Great Doctor of mine a burning, vibrant force in a -room of a crowded tenement, from the roof of which one could not see -a blade of grass or a tree. In fact, that force filled three rooms, in -which lived a man and woman and five children. I spent an hour in those -rooms on a Sunday afternoon, and the experience of that hour in a hot -and crowded tenement was a mightier sermon than was ever preached to -me in the heart of a forest. At every window was a box in which green -stuff was growing. There were flowers in pots. A pair of canary-birds -looked down upon the smoky roofs of a great city and sang. What -interested me most was two contrivances the man had made to force oats -into swift germination and growth. In a week, he told me, the green -sprout of an oat would be two inches long. Then I saw why they were -grown. Several times while I was there would a dove come to a window -and wait for a bit of the green. I could see they were different doves. -They told me at least a dozen were accustomed to come in that way. They -were the children’s pets. A little baby in arms cooed at them and waved -his arms in delight. I have seen many poor tenement families, but that, -I think, was the only happy one. The singing of the birds, the coming -of the doves, the growing of green things in their room were their -inspiration, their hope, the promise of dreams that would some day -come true. Nature had become their religion, and yet they did not know -it as such. It was calling them out into the great open spaces--and -they were living in anticipation of that day when they would answer the -call. - -Because I have spent much of my time in adventuring in distant -wildernesses, and exploring where other men have not gone, it has been -accepted by many that my love for nature means a love for the distant -and, for most people, the inaccessible wilds. It is true that in the -vast and silent places one comes nearer, perhaps, to the deeper truths -of life. Of the wild and its miracles I love to write, and when I come -to that part of my story, I shall possibly be happiest. But I would be -unfair to myself, and the religion of nature itself, if the great truth -were not first emphasized that its treasures are to be possessed by -mankind wherever one may turn--even in a prison cell. I was personally -in touch with one remarkable instance of this in the Michigan State -Penitentiary, at Jackson, where a canary-bird and a red geranium saved -a man from madness and eventually gained him a pardon, sending him out -into the world a living being with a new and better religion than he -had ever dreamed of before. - -But the open skies and the free air were intended from the beginning of -things as the greatest gifts to man, and it is there, if one is sick in -body or soul, that one should seek. Whether it is a mile or a thousand -miles from a city makes little difference. For nature is the universal -law. It is everywhere. It is neither mystery nor mysterious. Its pages -are open; its life is vibrant with the desire to be understood. The -one miracle is for man to bring himself down out of the clouds of his -egoism and replace his passion for destruction with the desire to -understand. - - * * * * * - -I have in mind a case in point. - -I had a very dear friend, a newspaper man, whose wife had died. I don’t -know that I ever saw a man more utterly broken up, for his love for -her was more than love. It was worship. He grew faded and thin, and a -gray patch over his temple turned white. The mightiest efforts of his -friends could do nothing. He wanted to be alone, alone in his home, -where he could grieve himself to death by inches. I knew that his case -was harder because he was merely tolerant of religion. One day, the -idea came to me that resulted in his spiritual and physical salvation. -I took him in my auto, and we went out into the country four or five -miles, opened a gate, drove down a long lane, and stopped at the edge -of a forty-acre wood. - -“Fred, I am going to show you a wonderful city,” I said. “Come with -me--quietly.” - -We climbed over the fence, and I led him to the heart of the wood, and -there we sat down, with our backs to a log. - -“Now, just to humor me, be very still,” I said. “Don’t move, don’t -speak--just listen.” - -It was three o’clock in the afternoon, that wonderful time of a summer -day when nature seems to rouse herself from midday slumber to fill the -world with her rustling life. The sun fell slantwise through the wood, -and here and there, under the roofs of the trees, we could see golden -pools and streams of it on the cool earth. - -“This is one of the most wonderful cities in the world,” I whispered, -“and there are hundreds and thousands of such cities, some of them -within the reach of all.” - -The musical ripple of a creek came to our ears. And then, slowly -at first, there came upon my friend the wonder of it all. He -understood--at last. About us, through all that forty acres of wood, -the air seemed to whisper forth a strange and wonderful life. Over our -heads, we heard a grating sound. It was a squirrel gnawing through the -shell of a last autumn’s nut. On an old stub, a woodpecker hammered. -Close about us were the “cheep, cheep, cheep,” and “twit, twit, twit,” -of little brown brushbirds. A warbler burst suddenly into a glorious -snatch of song. A quarter of a mile away, a crow cawed, and between us -and the crow we heard a fox-squirrel barking, and, a little later, saw -it, with its mate, scrambling in play up and down the trees. My friend -caught my arm and pointed. He was becoming interested, and what he saw -was a fat young woodchuck passing near us on a foraging expedition to a -neighboring clover field. - -For an hour we did not move, and through all that city was the drone -and voice of life, and that life was a soft and wonderful song, -soothing one almost to sleep. And when, at last, my friend whispered -again, “It sounds as though everything is talking,” I knew that the -spirit of the thing had got into him. Then I drew his attention to a -colony of big black ants whose fortress was in the log against which we -were resting. They were working. Two of them were trying to drag a dead -caterpillar over my friend’s knee. When we rose to go, I led him past -a little swale in which a score of blackbirds had bred their young. On -a slender willow, a bobolink was singing. A land-turtle lumbered back -into the water, and the bright eyes of green-headed frogs stared at -us from patches of scum. Under a bush, a score of toads were teaching -their tiny youngsters to swim. When my friend saw the little fellows -clinging to their mothers’ backs, he laughed--the first time in many -months. - -When we went back to the car, I said: - -“You have seen just one ten-thousandth of what nature holds for you and -every other man and woman. You haven’t believed in God very strongly. -But you’ve got to now. That’s God back there in the wood.” - -That was four years ago. To-day, that man not only lives in the heart -of nature but, from a special assignment man, he has risen to the -managing editorship of a big metropolitan daily. He has only his summer -vacation in which to get out into the big woods, but he has made room -for nature all about him. From early spring until late autumn, his -front and back yard fairly burst with life. And it is not, like most -yards, merely for show and passing pleasure to the eyes. He has brought -himself down out of the clouds of man’s egoism, and is learning and -taking strength from nature--which he now worships as the great “I am.” -He has developed a hobby for “interbreeding plants,” as he calls it, -and especially gladioli. Each morning in spring and summer and autumn, -he goes out into his garden, and, from the thousand living things -there, he receives strength for his nerve-racking duties of the day; -and at night, after his task is done, he returns to his garden to seek -that peace which is the great and vibrant force of the life that is -there. During the months of winter, he has his little conservatory. And -this man--for more than thirty years--hardly knew whether an oak grew -from an acorn or a seed! - -Yet has he one great regret. And more than once he has said to me, with -that grief in his voice which will never quite die out: “If we had only -found these things before, she would be with me now. I am convinced of -it. It was this strength she needed to keep her from fading away--to -build her up into joyous life again. Sometimes I wonder why the Great -Power that is above did not let her live to go into the wood with us -that day.” - - * * * * * - -Hours have passed since I first sat down to write these thoughts that -were in my mind. The storm has passed, and, following it, there has -come a marvelous silence. Both my door and window are open, and there -is rare sweetness in the breath of the rain-washed air. I can hear -the near-by trees dripping. The creek runs with a louder ripple. The -moon is shimmering through the fleecy clouds that are racing south and -east--toward my “civilized” home, fifteen hundred miles away. Over all -this world of mine there is, just now, a vast and voiceless quiet. And -if I were superstitious, or filled with the imagination of some of the -prophets of old, I am sure I would hear a Voice speaking out of that -mighty solitude, and it would say: - -“O you mortal, blind--blind as the rocks which make up the mountains! - -“Blind as the trees which you think have neither ears nor eyes! - -“Made to see, yet unseeing; making mystery out of that which was born -with you; seeking--yet seeking afar for that which lies close at hand! - -“You want peace. You go in quest of a Breast mightier than all life to -rest thy tired head upon. And thy quest is like the drifting of a ship -without a rudder at sea. For you think that the world is young because -thou livest in it now--and it is old, so old that thousands and tens -of thousands of peoples lived and died before Christ was born. You -think that civilization has come to pass, and ‘civilization’ has died a -thousand times under the dust of the ages. You believe you are treading -the only path to God--yet have a million billion people died before -you, unknowing the religions which you now know. - -“O you mortals of to-day, you are small and near-sighted, and hard of -hearing--even more than they who lived a million years before you, when -the world was an hour or two younger than now! - -“What are you? Proud of thy purse, vain of thy power, conceited in -thy self-glorification--yet you seek a simple thing and cannot find -it. You cannot find _rest_. You cannot find _faith_. You cannot find -_understanding_. You cannot find that Breast mightier than all life -upon which to rest thy head when the end comes and when you go to join -those trillions who have gone before you. - -“And, in your despair, you cry out that you know not which way to turn, -that you seek in darkness, that the world is a wilderness of schisms -and religions, and that you cannot tell which is the right and which -is the wrong. For you know that worlds have lived and died through the -eons of centuries before Christianity was born. And you are oppressed -by doubt even as you grope! - -“Yet you know deep in thy soul that the heavens were not an accident. -You know that hundreds and thousands of worlds greater than thine own -have traveled their paths in space for eternities. You know that the -sun was set in the skies so long ago that all the people of the earth -could not count the years of its life. And you know that a Great Hand -placed it there. And that Hand, you say, was God. - -“Yet you seek--and you seek--and you seek--and doubt everlastingly -clouds thine eyes; and when darkness comes and you stand at the edge of -the Great Beyond, you look back, and--lo!--the path you have traveled -seems very short, and it is cluttered with brambles and thorns and the -wreckage of shattered hopes and wasted years. - -“And then you see the Light! - -“And, as thy spirit departs, the mystery unveils--the answer comes. - -“For that which you sought, you looked too far. Close under thy feet -and close over thy head might you have found it!” - - * * * * * - -_The Second Trail_ I BECOME A KILLER - - * * * * * - - - - -_The Second Trail_ I BECOME A KILLER - - -This morning is a glory of sunshine and peace after last night’s rain. -It seems inconceivable that the blue sky above the forest was filled -a few hours ago with the crash of thunder and the blaze of lightning. -I was up at dawn, wakened by a pair of red squirrels playing upon the -roof of my cabin. Together we watched the sun rise, and after that they -chattered about my open door while I prepared my breakfast. We are -becoming great friends. One of them I have given the name of Nuts, and -for no reason in the world unless it is because there are no nuts up -here; and the other, the sleek, beautiful little female, I call Spoony -because she looks at me so slyly, with her pretty head perked on one -side, as if flirting with me. - -It is only eight o’clock, yet we have been up nearly four hours. At -the edge of the creek, less than a stone’s throw from the cabin, I -have built me a narrow table of smooth-hewn saplings between two old -spruce trees, and this is my open-air studio when the weather is fine. -Word of it has gone abroad, though I am many hundreds of miles from -civilization. Many kinds of wild things have come to get acquainted -with me, fascinated chiefly, I think, by the marvelous new language -of my clicking typewriter. The welcome and friendship of these little -wilderness-hearts are growing nearer and more apparent to me every day; -and with each day the Great Truth speaks to me even more clearly than -the day before--that each of these beating hearts, like my own, is a -part of that nature which I worship and is as vitally a spark of its -life as the heart which is beating inside my own flannel shirt. - -These friends of mine, gathering about me more intimately and in -greater number with each passing day, are individuals to me because -I have come to understand them and know their language. There is the -Artful Dodger, for instance--I sometimes call him Bill Sykes or Captain -Kidd--screaming close over my head this very moment. In very intimate -moments I call him Arty, or Kid, or Bill. He is a big blue jay. In -spite of all that has been said and written against him, I have a -very brotherly affection for Bill. He is a man’s man, among birds, -notwithstanding that he occasionally breakfasts on the eggs of other -birds, and kills more than is good for his reputation. Also, he is the -greatest liar and the biggest fraud and the most brazen-faced cheat in -the bird kingdom. But I know Bill intimately now, where I used to kill -him as a pest, and I love him for all his sins. - -He is a pirate who never loses his sense of humor. He is always -raising a disturbance just for the excitement of it, and when he has -drawn a crowd, so to speak, he will slip slyly away to some nearby -vantage-point and laugh and chuckle over the rumpus he has raised. -Right now, he is screaming himself hoarse forty feet above my head. -Two others have joined him, and they are making such a bedlam of sound -that Nuts and Spoony have ceased their chattering. There!--I have fired -a stick at them, and they are gone. They have had their joke, and are -quite satisfied--for the present. - -I can hear the musical rippling of the creek again, now that Bill and -his blustering pals are gone, and my typewriter is like a tiny machine -gun sending its clicking notes out into the still forest. A pair of -moose-birds, almost as big as the jays, are hopping about, so near -that, at times, they are perched on the end of my sapling table. -They are the tamest birds in the wilderness, and within another day -or so will be eating out of my hand. Unlike the jays, they make no -disturbance. They are soft and quiet, never making a sound, and their -big, beautiful eyes fairly pop with their intense interest in me. I -like their company, because there is a philosophy about them. They -never tire of looking at me, and studying me, and at times I have the -very pleasant fancy that they are bursting with a desire to speak. They -are very gentle, and never fight or scold or commit any sins that I -know of; and just now, as the two look at me with their big soft eyes, -I find myself wondering which of us is of most account in the final -analysis of things. - -Ten or fifteen rods above me, the creek widens and forms a wide -pool overhung with trees, so that, in the hottest weather, it must -be a delightfully refreshing place. I can see it plainly from where -I am sitting, for the creek twists a little, so that it is running -directly toward me when I look in that direction. Many wild things -come to that pool. This morning, I found a bear-track there, and the -fresh hoof-prints of a doe and fawn. Yesterday, a pair of traveling -otters discovered it, but when I tried them out with the voice of my -typewriter, they turned back. I am confident they will return, and that -we shall get acquainted. - -At the present moment, in looking toward the pool, I am struck by what -at first thought I might consider a discordant note in this wonderland -of quiet and peace that is about me. At the edge of the pool, rigid -and watchful, a hawk is poised on a dead limb projecting from a -lightning-struck stub. He is hungry and eager to kill. I have seen him -launch himself twice after a victim, but each time without success. -Finally, he will succeed. He will kill a living thing that he himself -may continue to live. Yet I have no inclination to shoot him. For to -live, and to cherish that spark of life that is in him, is as much his -right as it is mine. He is not, like man, a killer for the love of -killing. He wants his breakfast. - -And in fairness to him I think of two tender young spruce-partridges -which I shot late last evening, and which I shall roast for my dinner, -along with a potato and a flavor of bacon. My religion does not demand -vegetarianism any more than it does flesh; for that, too, is life. -For the trees whispering above me now are as alive to me as the -moose-birds perched at the end of my table, yet when necessity comes -I cut them down with an ax, and make a cabin or cook my food with -them. All nature cries out that life must exist upon life, that one -tree must grow upon the mold of another, that for each green blade of -grass another blade must die. It is not against a wise and necessary -destruction that the God of all nature cries out. The crime--the crime -greater than all other crimes--is destruction without cause. - - * * * * * - -That is what I must come to now, even in this glory of peace that is -whispering about me--I must face the task of confessing my own sins as -a killer, as a destroyer of life for the love and thrill of killing. I -was born, like all the children of men, a monumental egoist. My parents -were egoists. My forefathers for ten thousand generations were egoists -before me, and I was the last product of their egoism--one of the -billion and a half people who are living to-day in the blindness of a -self-conceit that has filled their worlds with schisms and religions as -false and as unstable as the treacherous sands of human “almightiness” -upon which they have been built. - -From the beginning, I did not need argument or education to tell me -that I was the greatest of all created things--that my particular -brand of life, of all life on the earth, was the only life that God -had intended to be inviolate. That fact was pounded home to me in the -public schools; it was preached to me in the churches. I was part and -parcel of the great “I Am.” For me, all the universe had been built. -For me, the Great Hereafter was solely created. All other life was -merely incidental, and created especially for my benefit. It was mine -to do with as I pleased. In a mild sort of way, the school and the -church told me to have a little charity, and not to “hurt the poor -little birdies.” - -But church and school did not tell me, and has never told its pupils, -that all other life on the earth was as precious as my own, and had -an equal right to fight for its existence. It is true I was told that -never a sparrow falls that God does not see it, but it is also true -that, for six years, my state urged its children to kill sparrows for -a bounty of two cents a head. I found no course in school or college -that attempted to teach me that the spark of life animating my own -body was no different from the sparks which animated all other living -things. Both religion and school instilled into me that I was next in -place to God. All other life, from the life of trees and flowers to -that of beasts and birds, was put on earth for my special benefit. No -other life had a right to exist unless the human egoist saw fit to let -it live. And all this simply because human life happened to be the most -powerful life, and cleverest in the art and science of destroying other -life. - -I wonder what would happen if for ten generations the churches and -schools would teach their little children and their grown-ups that -there is a heaven for flowers and trees and birds and butterflies -just as surely as there is a heaven for man! What would happen if the -teaching of the Great Truth of nature began in the kindergarten, and -went on through the lives of men and women, growing stronger in the -race as generation added itself to generation? It is something to think -about in these days when, in our madness for a faith, we are reviving -ghosts and phantom voices and are frightening our children again with -the diseased and weird belief that the spirits of the dead can come -back to us. We want something that is clean and healthy and inspiring, -something that is beautiful to contemplate, and which is not an -overwhelming insult to that Great Power of the universe of which we are -so small a part--and in the kindergarten we could plant the seed of -that thing, so that, through the school and the church and all life, it -would continue to grow stronger with each generation, until, at last, -man would shake off that deadliest of all his enemies, his own egoism -and self-conceit. Then, and not until then, will he find contentment -and peace and happiness in the brotherhood of all other life that is -about him. - -But I seem to be evading the issue--my own confession as a monumental -egoist and a killer. I have said that my parents were egoists, like -all their forefathers before them. Yet the world never held a better -mother than mine. I do not except any who may sit in heaven at the -present time. And my father, as a man, was far better than his son will -ever be. He was a gentleman of the old school, living, as he died, an -example of courage and fearlessness and honor to all who knew him. -Yet did these two splendid people, like all other parents, foster and -cultivate my egoism from the beginning. They did it unconsciously, -blindly, as hundreds of millions of other parents are doing to-day. - -My father loved hunting and fishing, and at eight years of age I -possessed my own gun. I remember with what pride he taught me to shoot -and to stalk my first living victims; and when we returned from a hunt, -if I had killed anything, it was always to me that my beloved mother -gave her greatest attention and commendation. We lived on an Ohio farm -then, and I became a sort of boy prodigy in the art of hunting. When -I was nine years old, a newspaper in a near-by city published a story -of my prowess, and I do not think I was more puffed up over it than my -father himself. By the time I was twelve, I had lost all respect for -that life which the laws of our state said I might take. I had a fine -collection of birds’ eggs, and another “splendid” collection of birds’ -wings. My room was decorated with the wings. - -I always recall with an odd sort of feeling that at this particular -height of my boyish slaughter of life I “got religion,” and got it -hard. At Joppa, a “four-corners” two miles from our farm, a series -of revival meetings was going on that winter, and I cannot remember -anyone in all our community who did not get the religious fever, -except most of the youngsters. But it hit me hard. I felt that I was -actually inspired. So deeply did the excited preachings effect my mind -that frequently, when I was alone, I felt that angels were with me. -One moonlight night, in returning from a revival, I actually saw an -angel, and the beautiful thing with white wings and white raiment and -wonderful flowing hair walked halfway home with me. When I told that -story at school the next day, and insisted that it was true, I had five -different fights. My mother said that it probably was true, for she was -delighted that I had become religious. So I fought, and licked--and got -licked--for about a month because of my faith. - -But what I am coming to is this: Though practically our whole township -was converted, at no time did this religion tell me to stop killing. So -inspired was I that Mr. Teachout, the revivalist, had me give a short -“sermon” one evening--and I recall vividly how, in “introducing” me, -he said, in a loud voice and with a great flourish of his arms, that -I “was the best hunter in all Erie County and could kill more game -in a day than almost any grown hunter there.” Whereupon there was a -mighty applause from the hundred people present, and I was the proudest -youngster in Ohio. - -Why? - -Because from a church rostrum I was hailed as the greatest boy killer -in that county! No one of all those Christians told me that I should -stop killing. They made a hero of me because I was already becoming -a master in the art of killing. They built up my egoism to a point -where it became blasphemous--to a point where it more than offset my -mother’s pleadings that I stop shooting birds for their wings. Then -came a thing which, as I look back upon it now, seems to me monstrous. -There was to be a big “hunters’ supper” to end the revival. The men -chose sides, and on a certain day all these men set out to kill. They -were to kill nothing “outside the law.” But all life not protected by -law might be sacrificed. I remember that a rabbit counted five points, -a squirrel four, a hawk six, a blue jay two, and so on. The side that -lost out on “points,” or, in other words, destroyed the least life, -was compelled to furnish the supper. How I did slaughter! When I came -in to the “count” that night, my game-bag was filled to the brim with -dead things. Among other creatures I had killed seventeen blue jays! -Any wonder that Captain Kidd and his pals screamed over my head this -morning? - -And yet good Christian people still regard with horror the day when -pagan Rome burned the martyrs. - -My education in the art of destruction increased as my years grew in -number. I was not alone. All the human world was destroying, just as -it is destroying to-day. We moved back to the little city of Owosso, -in Michigan, where I was born. In Erie County, Ohio, my nickname had -been Slippery--just why I don’t know; now, in Michigan, it became -Nimrod and Wildcat Jim. I haunted our beautiful Shiawassee River as -ghosts are now haunting some of our scientific writers. I trapped and -hunted and fished more than I studied--so much more, in fact, that I -became decidedly unpopular with our high-school principal, Mr. Austin, -who is now my very good friend. At last, I stood at the splitting of -the ways--and I chose my own course. I trapped a season, and, with -the money earned, started in on a special course at the University of -Michigan. Things went well. I slipped through college with the ease of -an eel, took up newspaper work in Detroit, became a special writer and -a magazine writer and the youngest metropolitan newspaper editor in -Michigan. I felt inclined to believe that I was a wild and uproarious -success. - -But under it all burned my desire to get back to my old job of -destruction, and this desire led me into my long years of adventuring -into the far northern wildernesses. - -As I sit here now, clicking my typewriter in the still heart of the -forest, it is a wonder to me that some colossal spirit of vengeance -does not rise up out of it and destroy me. And yet, when I consider, I -know why that vengeance does not come--and in the face of this “great -reason,” I see my littleness as I have never seen it before. It is -because, very slowly, my egoism is crumbling away. And as it crumbles, -my big brother--all nature--grips my hand ever more closely, and -whispers to me to tell others something of what I have found. And that -big brother is not only the spirit of the heart-beating things about -me, but also the spirit and voice of the trees, of the living earth -that throbs under my feet, of the flowers, the sun, the sky. It is -all reaching out to me with a great show of friendliness, and I seem -to feel that fear and misunderstanding have slipped away from between -us. It is inviting me to accept of it all that I may require, yet to -cherish that which I cannot use. It is telling me, as it has whispered -to me a thousand times before, the secret of life; that the life in -my own breast and all this that is about me are one and the same--and -that, in our partnership for happiness, we each belong to the other. -And there must be no desire for vengeance between us. - -Yet, to me, it does not seem like justice, looking at it from the -warped and narrow point of view of my human mind. It is the human -instinct to demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And I -cannot see why my God of nature should give me such reward of peace and -friendship after what I have done. It has always been my logic that -life is the cheapest thing in existence. There is just so much earth, -so much water, so much air about us; but of life there is no end. So -we go on destroying. If nature would keep this destroyed life unto -herself for a few generations, instead of giving it back to us in her -unvengeful way, the earth would soon become a desert. Then we would -learn our lesson. - -I am thinking, as I write this, of a beautiful little forest in a -wonderful valley in the heart of the British Columbia mountains. It -was a glorious thing to look down upon that day when I destroyed it. -I call it a forest, though there was not more than an acre of it, or -two at the most. And the valley was really a “pocket” among the mighty -peaks of the Firepan Range. It was of balsams and cedars, rich green, -and densely thick--a marvelous patch of living tapestry, vibrant with -the glow and pulse of life in the sunset of that day. Into its shelter -we had driven a wounded grizzly which had refused to turn and fight. -And so thick and protecting was the heart of it that we could not get -the grizzly out. Night was not far away, and in its darkness we knew -our game would escape us. And the thought came to us to burn that -little paradise of green. There was no danger of a spreading fire. The -mountain walls of the “pocket” would prevent that. And it was I who -struck the match! - -In twenty minutes, the little forest was a sea of writhing, leaping -flame. It cried out and moaned in the agony of conflagration. The bear -fled from its torture and its ruin, and we killed him. That night, the -moon shone down on a black and smoldering mass of ruin where a little -while before had been the paradise. - -In our camp, we laughed and exulted. The egoism of man made us feel our -false triumph. What it had taken a thousand years to place in that -cup of the mountains we had destroyed in half an hour--yet we felt no -regret. We had destroyed a thousand times more life than filled our own -pitiable bodies, yet did the false ethics of our breed assure us that -we had done no wrong--simply because the life we had destroyed had not -possessed a form and tongue like our own. - -“This man must be losing his reason,” I hear some of my readers say. Is -it that, or is a bit of reason just returning to me, after a million -years of sleep? If it is madness, it is of a kind that would comfort -the world could all be mad as I am mad. Life is Life. It is a spark -of the same Supreme Power, whether in a tree, a flower, or a thing of -flesh and blood. To me, as I view it now, the wanton destruction of -that little paradise was as tragic as the destruction of life carried -about on two legs or four. I feel that the crime of its destruction was -as great as that of another day which I recall most vividly in these -moments. - -I was in another wonderland of the northern mountains, and my companion -was a grizzled old hunter who had learned the art of killing through -a lifetime of experience. With our pack-outfit of seven horses, we -were hitting for the Yukon over a trail never traveled by white man -before. So glorious was the valley we were in on this day of which I -write that at noon we struck our camp. So awesome was the vastness -and beauty of it that my soul was held spellbound with the magic of -it. On all sides of us rose the mighty mountains, with snow-crowned -peaks rising here and there out of the towering ranges. The murmur of -rippling water filled the soft air with soothing song; green meadows, -sweet with the perfume of wild hyacinths, violets, and a hundred -other flowers, carpeted the rich earth about us; on the sun-warmed -rocks, whistlers lay in fat contentment, calling to one another like -small boys whistling between their teeth; the slopes were dotted with -ptarmigan; a pair of eagles soared high above us, and from the patches -and fingers of timber came the cry and song of birds. With my back -propped against a pile of saddles and panniers I carefully scanned the -slides and slopes through my hunting-glasses. High up on the crag of -a mountain-shoulder, I picked up a nanny-goat feeding with her kid. -Still farther away, on a green “slide” at least two miles from camp, I -discovered five mountain-sheep lying down. And after that, swinging -my glasses slowly, I came to something which sent a thrill through -my blood. It was a mile away, a great, slow-moving hulk that I might -have mistaken for a rock had my eyes not been trained to the ways and -movement of game. It was a grizzly. - -Alone I went after him, armed with man’s deadliest weapon of -extinction, a .405 Winchester. Inside of half an hour I was well in the -teeth of the breeze coming up the valley, and almost within gunshot of -my victim. I came to a coulee and crept up that, and when I reached the -table-land meadow where it began, a thousand feet above the valley, I -found myself within a hundred yards of the grizzly. - -He was digging like a dog for a gopher. And, then, suddenly, my heart -gave a thump that almost choked me. In a twist of the mountain-bench, -not more than seventy or eighty yards above me, were two more -grizzlies. I hesitated, and looked back down the coulee, for a moment -doubtful whether to retreat or declare war. Then I decided. In my hands -was a killer of the deadliest and surest kind. I was an expert shot and -my nerves were steady. I began. I think I fired five shots in perhaps -thirty seconds, and the three big grizzlies died almost in their -tracks. A conqueror returning in his triumph to old Rome could not -have been more elated than I. I remember that I leaped and danced and -shrieked out at the top of my voice in the direction of camp. I was mad -with joy. Three thousand pounds of flesh and blood lay hot and lifeless -under my eyes, and I, the human near-god, with my own two insignificant -hands and a mechanical thing, _had taken the life from it_! - -I sat down on one of the huge carcasses that still breathed under me. -I wiped my face, and my blood was running a race that heated me as if -with fire. And the thought came to me: “Oh, if the world could only see -me now--here in my glorious triumph--with these great beasts about me!” -For it was a mighty triumph for man, the egoist. In thirty seconds I -had destroyed a possible one hundred years of throbbing, heart-beating -life, a hundred years of winter, a hundred years of summer, a hundred -mating-seasons, and the thousand other lives that now would never be -born! I stood up, and shrieked again toward the camp, and far above me -out of the blue of the sky I heard an answering cry from one of the -eagles.... - -Yes, as I sit here, looking back over the days that are gone, I wonder -that the spirit of vengeance does not rise up out of the forest and -destroy me, even as I have destroyed. It would be justice, according to -that justice which man the egoist metes out. And yet, even as I wonder, -the answer comes to me very clearly. I am no different than hundreds of -millions of others. I have destroyed in my own way, while others have -destroyed in theirs. And nature, the most blessed of all things, is not -vengeful. God forgives. And nature is God. It is God that lives in the -rose, in the violet, in the tree, just as he lives in the heart of man. -It is God that breathes in the grass which makes the earth sweet to -tread upon, and it is God that lives in the song of birds. His “life” -is all-encompassing, the vital spark of all existent things. Instead of -sending ghosts back to earth to prove his power, he gives us all these -things, and lives and breathes in them, that we may have him with us in -physical things all the days of our lives if we will only rise out of -our egoism--and understand. - -And now I have come again to the parting of a way. I have bared the -black side of my ledger, and it has not been pleasant work for -me. To-morrow begins the joyous part of my task--the beginning of -that story which will tell how at last my eyes were opened, how -understanding came to me, and with that understanding a new faith which -will live with me through all the rest of the years of my life. - - * * * * * - -_The Third Trail_ MY BROTHERHOOD - - * * * * * - - - - -_The Third Trail_ MY BROTHERHOOD - - -To-day is Sunday, and I have just returned from a week’s hike up the -mysterious little creek that runs past my cabin. It seems good to be -home again, and Nuts and Spoony and Wild Bill, the blue jay, have given -me a royal welcome, and I am almost convinced my pop-eyed moose-bird -friends are trying to tell me who was the thief in my cabin while I -was gone. On that “to-morrow” when I had promised myself another day -of writing, the _Wanderlust_ came to me, and I packed up a kit and a -week’s supply of grub and started out to explore my creek. It is a -very individual sort of creek--it has character, even, if it hasn’t a -name. It comes out of deep, dark, and unexplored masses of forest to -the north, and I have fancied it bringing down all sorts of romance -and tragedy out of the hidden places if it could only talk. So I went -to the end of it to find out its secrets for myself. And there was so -much of interest that I could fill a book with it. I don’t think any -other white feet have ever traveled up this creek, which I now call -“Lonesome.” Surely not even an Indian has been along it for at least a -generation, for I did not find the mark of an ax or sign of a fire or -vestige of deadfall or trap-house. - -But it did take me forty miles back into a country of such savage -wilderness and dense forests that I have almost determined to build me -another cabin there a little later, if for no other reason than to live -for a while with the hundreds of owls that inhabit certain parts of it. -I have never seen so many owls anywhere in the Northland, and I figure -this is because the big snow-shoe rabbits have been multiplying for -several years past, and now exist there literally in thousands. At many -places along the creek, the earth was beaten hard by their furred feet. -By all the signs, I have predicted that next year, or the year after, -the “seven-year rabbit-plague” will come along and kill off ninety out -of every hundred. Then the owls will scatter, and most of the lynxes -and foxes and wolves will wander off into other hunting grounds, for -the rabbit is the staff of life of the flesh-eating birds and beasts -of the big northern forests, just as all the world over wheat is the -mainstay of human stomachs. - -But I am wandering a bit from the point in mind--which is to say that, -in leaving on my journey of exploration, I forgot to close the window -of my cabin, and through that open window entered the rascally thief -whom the pair of moose-birds are trying to tell me about. I think Bill -knows also, but I don’t believe he would give a brother robber away, -even if he did have four feet and a tail. By tracks and two or three -other signs, I know the thief is a wolverine, who, like the pack-rat -over in the mountains, steals almost entirely for the fun of it. This -mischief-making humorist, among other things, has carried away a hat, -one of my two frying-pans, several tins, half a slab of bacon, and my -favorite fish-cleaning knife during my absence. But I know this clever -fellow’s ways, and have hope that I shall soon recover my property if I -keep my eyes open and listen with both my ears. - -And I shall not kill him, no matter how red-handed--or red-footed--I -catch him. A few years ago, I would have planned to ambush him with -a rifle. But now I have the desire to become as intimate with him as -possible and learn a little more definitely what he wants with a -knife, a skillet, and my pans. I feel that, for his theft, he should -in some way be rewarded and not slain, for he has added to my interest -in life by rousing a keen and harmless curiosity. His is only one way -in which nature is constantly adding fullness of life and greater -contentment to my years. Everywhere, even to the smallest things under -my feet and at my hand, I am learning more and more of the marvelous -ways and life of all creation, and the more I learn the more I am -convinced that I am simply an atom in its vast brotherhood, and I am -finding a great happiness by making myself actually a part of it. - -Heretofore, I have been a self-expatriated spark of life, so to speak; -in my human egoism, I have held myself apart from all other sparks of -life that were not formed in my own poor and unlovely shape--and, even -then, I considered myself considerably better than those who did not -happen to be of my particular color and breed. - -Two very simple things are adding to my pleasure in life this early -afternoon, and illustrate the point I have in mind--if one can bow -one’s head down to the level of understanding. I am writing again -between the two big spruce trees, but during my week of absence other -sparks of life have, in a way, taken possession of my table. From -between two of the hewn saplings that form the top of this table, where -the big storm of wind must have flung a bit of earth and a seed, a -tender green sprout of something has started to grow. It is a single -spear now, not of grass, and its green is the whitish green of the -lower part of an asparagus shoot. To me, it seems fairly to pulse with -life, and I have the very foolish feeling within me that nature planned -this little surprise for me while I was away, and that, if I give it a -bit of brotherly attention, I am going to have a flower on my table, -not transplanted or plucked, but there deliberately through friendship -for me. However foolish this notion may be, it is a very pleasant one -to have, and its effect is to bring me much nearer to the Creator of -things than any sermon I could hear preached from a pulpit; for I am -not listening merely to words about God, but I am looking directly at a -physical part of God, and I find a great satisfaction in this faith. - -A second interesting thing that has happened to my table is that it has -become a plain across which now runs the trail of a big tribe of ants. -These ants, I have found, climb up the farthest right-hand support of -my table and proceed straight across to the big spruce on my left, up -which they disappear; and a returning file of the workers come down -the spruce and hit it “cross-country” to the table-leg again. They -don’t seem to be bearing any burdens, yet they move with precision and -purpose, and I have come to understand that, when ants move in this -way, they have something very definite in mind. I am convinced they -are moving from one fortress home to another, or at least that every -“working” individual in the tribe is personally investigating some new -discovery that has been made either up the spruce or in the direction -of the creek. Later, I will know more about it. - -But the point that impresses itself upon me most is that, in my -destroying days, I would have swept the friendly little green sprout -from its cradle, and would have driven the ant tribe from my property, -destroying as many of them as possible. Again I want to emphasize -that I am not a crank, or narrow-minded in my religion of “live and -let live.” If this same tribe of ants had invaded my cabin, and were -preying on things necessary to me, I would destroy them or drive them -away. That is my nature-given privilege--to protect myself and what is -mine. It is also the privilege of every other spark of life. These same -ants, were I to stand on their fortress, would attack me desperately. -But now they do not molest me. And I do not molest them. It is the -beautiful law of “live and let live”--so long as the necessity for -destruction does not arise. - -When I sat down at my typewriter an hour ago, I had planned to -begin immediately the telling of what I have wandered somewhat away -from--the story of a few incidents which helped to bring about my own -regeneration, and which at last impressed upon me this great Golden -Rule of all nature--live and let live. The big dramatic climax in that -part of my life happened over in the British Columbia mountains, where -my love of adventure has taken me on many long journeys. - -But the change had begun to work in me before then. My conscience was -already stabbing me. I was regretting, in a mild sort of way, that -I had killed so much. But I was still the supreme egoist, believing -myself the God-chosen animal of all creation, and when at any time I -withheld my destroying hand, I flattered myself with a thought of my -condescension and human kindness. - -At the particular time I am going to write about, I was on a big -grizzly-hunt in a wild and unhunted part of the British Columbia -mountains. I had with me one man, seven horses, and a pack of Airedales -trained to hunt bear. We had struck a grizzly-and-caribou paradise, -and there had been considerable killing, when, one day, we came upon -the trail of Thor, the great beast that showed me how small in soul -and inclination a man can be. In a patch of mud his feet had left -tracks that were fifteen inches from tip to tip, and so wide and deep -were the imprints that I knew I had come upon the king of all his -kind. I was alone that morning, for I had left camp an hour ahead of -my man, who was two or three miles behind me with four of the horses -and the Airedale pack. I went on watching for a new campsite, for the -thrill of a great desire possessed me--the desire to take the life of -this monster king of the mountains. It was in these moments that the -unexpected happened. I came over a little rise, not expecting that my -bear was within two or three miles of me, when something that was very -much like a low and sullen rumble of far-away thunder stopped the blood -in my veins. - -Ahead of me, on the edge of a little wallow of mud, stood Thor. He -had smelled me, and, I believe, it was the first time he had ever -smelled the scent of man. Waiting for this new mystery in the air, he -had reared himself up until the whole nine feet of him rested on his -haunches, and he sat like a trained dog, with his great forefeet, heavy -with mud, drooping in front of his chest. He was a monster in size, -and his new June coat shone a golden brown in the sun. His forearms -were almost as large as a man’s body, and the three largest of his five -knifelike claws were five and a half inches long. He was fat and sleek -and powerful. His upper fangs, sharp as stiletto-points, were as long -as a man’s thumb, and between his great jaws he could have crushed the -neck of a caribou. I did not take in all these details in the first -startling moments; one by one they came to me later. But I had never -looked upon anything in life quite so magnificent. Yet did I have no -thought of sparing that splendid life. Since that day, I have rested in -camp with my head pillowed on the arm of a living grizzly that weighed -a thousand pounds. Friendship and love and understanding have sprung -up between us. But in that moment my desire was to destroy this life -that was so much greater than my own. My rifle was at my saddle-horn in -its buckskin jacket. I fumbled it in getting into action, and in those -precious moments Thor lowered himself slowly and ambled away. I fired -twice, and would have staked my life that I had missed both times. Not -until later did I discover that one of my bullets had opened a furrow -two inches deep and a foot long in the flesh of Thor’s shoulder. Yet I -did not see him flinch. He did not turn back, but went his way. - -Shame burns within me as I write of the days that followed; and yet, -with that shame, there is a deep and abiding joy, for they were also -the days of my regeneration. Day and night, my one thought was to -destroy the big grizzly. We never left his trail. The dogs followed -him like demons. Five times in the first week we came within long -shooting-range, and twice we hit him. But still he did not wait for us -or attack us. He wanted to be left alone. In that week, he killed four -of the dogs, and the others we tied up to save them. We trailed him -with horses and afoot, and never did the spoor of other game lure me -aside. The desire to kill him became a passion in me. He outgeneraled -us. He beat all our games of trickery. But I knew that we were bound -to win--that he was slowly weakening because of exhaustion, and the -sickness of his wounds. We loosed the dogs again, and another was -killed. - -Then, at last, came that splendid day when Thor, master of the -mountains, showed me how contemptible was I--with my human shape and -soul. - -It was Sunday. I had climbed three or four thousand feet up the side -of a mountain and below me lay the wonder of the valley, dotted with -patches of trees and carpeted with the beauty of rich, green grass, -mountain-violets and forget-me-nots, wild asters, and hyacinths. On -three sides of me spread out the wonderful panorama of the Canadian -Rockies, softened in the golden sunshine of late June. From up and down -the valley, from the breaks between the peaks, and from the little -gullies cleft in shale and rock that crept up to the snow-lines came a -soft and droning murmur. It was the music of running water--music ever -in the air of summer, for the rivers and creeks and tiny streamlets -gushing down from the melting snow up near the clouds are never still. -Sweet perfumes as well as music came to me; June and July--the last -of spring and the first of summer in the northern mountains--were -commingling. All the earth was bursting with green; flowers were -turning the sunny slopes and meadows into colored splashes of red -and white and purple, and everything that had life was giving voice -to exultation--the fat whistlers on their rocks, the pompous little -gophers on their mounds, the squirrel-like rock-rabbits, the big -bumblebees that buzzed from flower to flower, the hawks in the valley, -and the eagles over the peaks. - -Earth, it seemed, was at peace. - -And I, looking over all that vastness of life, felt my own greatness -thrust upon me. - -For had not the Creator, of all things, made this wonderland for _me_? - -There could be no denial. I was master--master because I could think, -because I could reason, because I held the reins to an unutterable -power of destruction. And then the vastness of time seized upon me like -a living thing. Yesterday, a thing had happened which came strongly -into my thoughts of to-day. Under a great overhanging cliff I had found -a part of a monster bone, as heavy as iron--a section of a gigantic -vertebra. Two years before I had found part of the skeleton of a -prehistoric creature, identical with this, and, from photographs which -I took of it the scientific departments of the University of Michigan -and the government at Ottawa agreed that the bones were part of the -skeleton of a mammoth whale that once had swum where the valleys and -peaks of the Rocky Mountains now disrupt the continent. - -And on this Sunday, looking down, I thought of the monster bone I -had found yesterday in the dry shale and sand under the cliff. When -the Three Wise Men saw the star in the east, that bone was as I had -found it. It was there when Christ was born. It was there, unmoved -and untouched, before Rome was founded, before Troy died in the mists -of the past, before history, as we know history, began. It was there -a million years ago, ten million, fifty, a hundred. And, thinking of -this, I felt myself growing smaller and smaller; my egoism died away, -and I saw these mountains obliterated and under the blue of a vast -ocean, and rising out of that ocean I saw other continents, peopled -with other people, moved by other religions, beating to the pulse of -other civilizations long dead. I heard the beat of waves below me, -where grew the grass and the flowers of the valley. And the droning -music of that valley seemed to change into the low whisperings of -countless trillions of men and women and little children who had -lived and died in those other civilizations of the lost ages; and -that fancied whispering of dead worlds told me a great truth--that -the Supreme Arbiter of things had watched over all those trillions -just as he was now watching over me, that I was but a pitifully small -grain of dust in the great scheme of things, that my egoism was -criminal, sacrilegious, a curse set upon myself by myself. And the -soft and droning whisper also told me the time would come when my own -“civilization” would be obliterated, to be followed by a hundred, a -thousand, or a million others, each in its turn to live and die. - -And it was then, on that Sunday precious to me, that I asked myself an -old, old question in a great, new way--“What is God?” - -And looking down into the valley, and up into the sky, understanding -came to me. God is there, and there, and there. He is the Infinite -Power. He is Life. Life began infinities ago, and it will continue -through other infinities. While we are squabbling among ourselves with -our little religions and our little views, while we are preaching the -damnation of beliefs that are not ours, while sects fight to convert -sects that do not think as they think, while our narrow-gage minds -travel in their narrow-gage paths,--that Infinite Power is watching -and waiting, as it has watched and waited from the beginning, and -as it will watch and wait until the end. And I stared down into the -valley, green and glorious and filled with sunshine and peace, and that -low-sung whisper seemed to say, “If this is not God what _is_ God?” And -then also, in a new way, came something in my brain which said to me, -“_And who are you?_” - - * * * * * - -I climbed higher up the mountain. I felt my greatness gone. Kindly, -something had told me how pitiful I was. I was not mighty. I was no -more in the ultimate of things than a blade of grass. My egoism, on -that glorious Sunday, began to crumble in my soul. And then, by chance -if you will have it so, came the climax of that day. - -I came to a sheer wall of rock that rose hundreds of feet above me. -Along this ran a narrow ledge, and I followed it. The passage became -craggy and difficult, and in climbing over a broken mass of rock, I -slipped and fell. I had brought a light mountain-gun with me, and in -trying to recover myself I swung it about with such force that the -stock struck a sharp edge of rock and broke clean off. But I had saved -myself from possible death, and was in a frame of mind to congratulate -myself rather than curse my luck. Fifty feet farther on I came to -a “pocket” in the cliff, where the ledge widened until, at this -particular place, it was like a flat table twenty feet square. Here I -sat down, with my back to the precipitous wall, and began to examine my -broken rifle. - -I laid it beside me, useless. Straight up at my back rose the sheer -face of the mountain; in front of me, had I leaped from the ledge, -my body would have hurtled through empty air for a thousand feet. In -the valley I could see the creek, like a ribbon of shimmering silver; -two or three miles away was a little lake; on another mountain I -saw a bursting cascade of water leaping down the heights and losing -itself in the velvety green of the lower timber. For many minutes, -new and strange thoughts possessed me. I did not look through my -hunting-glasses, for I was no longer seeking game. My blood was -stirred, but not with the desire to kill. - -And then, suddenly, there came a sound to my ears that seemed to -stop the beating of my heart. I had not heard it until it was very -near--approaching along the narrow ledge. - -It was the click,--click,--click of claws rattling on rock! - -I did not move. I hardly breathed. And out from the ledge I had -followed came a monster bear! - -With the swiftness of lightning, I recognized him. It was Thor! And, in -that same instant, the great beast saw me. - -In thirty seconds I lived a lifetime, and in those thirty seconds -what passed through my mind was a thousand times swifter than spoken -word. A great fear rooted me, and yet in that fear I saw everything to -the minutest detail. Thor’s massive head and shoulders were fronting -me. I saw the long naked scar where my bullet had plowed through -his shoulder; I saw another wound in his fore leg, still ragged and -painful, where another of my soft-nosed bullets had torn like an -explosion of dynamite. The giant grizzly was no longer fat and sleek -as I had first seen him ten days ago. All that time he had been -fighting for his life; he was thinner; his eyes were red; his coat was -dull and unkempt from lack of food and strength. But at that distance, -less than ten feet from me, he seemed still a mighty brother of the -mountains themselves. As I sat stupidly, stunned to the immobility of a -rock in my hour of doom, I felt the overwhelming conviction of what had -happened. Thor had followed me along the ledge, and, in this hour of -vengeance and triumph, it was I, and not the great beast, who was about -to die. - -It seemed to me that an eternity passed in these moments. And Thor, -mighty in his strength, looked at me and did not move. And this thing -that he was looking at,--shrinking against the rock,--was the creature -that had hunted him; this was the creature that had hurt him, and -it was so near that he could reach out with his paw and crush it! -And how weak and white and helpless it looked now! What a pitiful, -insignificant thing it was! Where was its strange thunder? Where was -its burning lightning? Why did it make no sound? - -Slowly Thor’s giant head began swinging from side to side; then he -advanced--just one step--and in a slow, graceful movement reared -himself to his full, magnificent height. For me, it was the beginning -of the end. And in that moment, doomed as I was, I found no pity for -myself. Here, at last, was justice! I was about to die. I, who had -destroyed so much of life, found how helpless I was when I faced life -with my naked hands. _And it was justice!_ I had robbed the earth of -more life than would fill the bodies of a thousand men, and now my -own life was to follow that which I had destroyed. Suddenly fear left -me. I wanted to cry out to that splendid creature that I was sorry, -and could my dry lips have framed the words, it would not have been -cowardice--but truth. - -I have read many stories of truth and hope and faith and charity. -From a little boy, my father tried to teach me what it meant to be a -gentleman, and he lived what he tried to teach. And from the days of my -small boyhood, mother told me stories of great and good men and women, -and in the days of my manhood, she faithfully lived the great truth -that of all precious things charity and love are the most priceless. -Yet had I accepted it all in the narrowest and littlest way. Not until -this hour on the edge of the cliff did I realize how small can be the -soul of a man buried in his egoism--or how splendid can be the soul of -a beast. - -For Thor knew me. That I know. He knew me as the deadliest of all -his enemies on the face of the earth. Yet until I die will I believe -that, in my helplessness, he no longer hated me or wanted my life. For -slowly he came down upon all fours again, and, limping as he went, he -continued along the ledge--_and left me to live_! - - * * * * * - -I am not, in these days, sacrilegious enough to think that the Supreme -Power picked my poor insignificant self from among a billion and a half -other humans especially to preach a sermon to that glorious Sunday -on the mountainside. Possibly it was all mere chance. It may be that -another day Thor would have killed me in my helplessness. It may all -have been a lucky accident for me. Personally, I do not believe it, -for I have found that the soul of the average beast is cleaner of hate -and of malice than that of the average man. But whether one believes -with me or not, does not matter, so far as the point I want to make is -concerned--that from this hour began the great change in me, which has -finally admitted me into the peace and joy of universal brotherhood -with Life. It matters little how a sermon or a great truth comes to -one; it is the result that counts. - -I returned down the mountain, carrying my broken gun with me. And -everywhere I saw that things were different. The fat whistlers, big as -woodchucks, were no longer so many targets, watching me cautiously from -the rock-tops; the gophers, sunning themselves on their mounds, meant -more to me now than a few hours ago. I looked off to a distant slide -on another mountain and made out the half-dozen sheep I had studied -through my glasses earlier in the day. But my desire to kill was gone. -I did not realize the fullness of the change that was upon me then. -In a dull sort of way, I accepted it as an effect of shock, perhaps -as a passing moment of repentance and gratitude because of my escape. -I did not tell myself that I would never kill sheep again except when -mutton was necessary to my camp fire. I did not promise the whistlers -long lives. And yet the change was on me, and growing stronger in my -blood with every breath I drew. The valley was different. Its air was -sweeter. Its low song of life and running waters and velvety winds -whispering between the mountains was new inspiration to me. The grass -was softer under my feet; the flowers were more beautiful; the earth -itself held a new thrill for me. - - * * * * * - -A few nights later, beside a small fire we had built in the -cool of evening, I tried to tell old Donald something about the -Transfiguration, how Christ had gone up on the mount with Peter and -John and James, and what had happened there. - -“It wasn’t that Christ himself was actually changed as he prayed on -the mountain-top,” I said to Donald. “The change was in Peter and John -and James, who in these moments saw Christ with a new vision and a new -understanding. The Transfiguration was simply a mental process of their -own; they saw clearly now where before they had been half blind. And I -am wondering if this old world of ours wouldn’t change for us in the -same way if we saw it with understanding, and looked at it with clean -eyes?” - - * * * * * - -So, on this other Sunday, as the evening draws on, I look back through -the years between me and that day on the mountain-top, and the memory -of Thor fills a warm corner of my heart. Through him I have the happy -thought that I was given birth into a new world, and all things now -hold a new significance for me. I have discovered for myself, in a -small way, the wonderful secret of the instinctive processes of nature, -and in a thousand ways I have found this instinct, coming directly from -the fount of supreme direction, far more amazing than reasoning itself. -I understand more clearly, I think, why all humanity loves a baby, no -matter how ugly it may be. It is because it is so utterly dependent -upon instinct alone, so completely helpless, so absolutely without -reason or protection of its own. We like to believe that a baby is very -close to God, simply because it has no reasoning and because it is as -yet purely a creature of instinctive processes. And yet, as we lay down -our lives for its protection, we forget that adult man, with all his -reasoning and his power, was originally a creature of instinct himself. -We forget that it took millions of years to give him a language, and -that possession of language alone has made him a super-creature. For -it is language that gives birth to reason, allows of communication -of thought, and should man be suddenly bereft of all language and -thought-communication he would, in the course of ages, revert again -into a creature guided solely by instinct. In that event he would be -nothing more or less than a brother to all other creatures of instinct. -He would again become an ordinary member of the Ancient Brotherhood of -Common Heritage, and could no longer call himself the Chosen One and -the Ordained of God. But good luck came to him, perhaps even in the -days when he may have swung from the trees by his tail--good luck in -the discovery of a crude method of thought-communication, a discovery -that developed through the ages, until now his head is turned, so to -speak, and for tens of thousands of years he has looked down more and -more upon his poor relations who have not had his own good fortune. - -But I am learning that time has not freed him, and never will free -him, from his blood relationship. And creed may follow creed, and -religion may follow religion, but never will he find that full peace -and contentment which might be his lot until he recognizes and admits -into his comradeship again the soul of that nature which is his own -mother, and forgets his monumental egoism in a new understanding of -those instinctive processes of nature through which he, himself, passed -in the kindergarten of his own existence. - -This is my faith, my religion. Close to where I am sitting is an old -stub, clothed in a mass of wood-vine, warm and vivid in the golden glow -of the setting sun. The wood-vine has climbed, instinctively, to the -top of the stub, and now, finding their support gone, half a dozen long -tendrils are reaching out toward a tall young birch six or eight feet -away. One tendril, stronger and older than the others, has reached and -clasped the nearest branch. The others are following unerringly. _Yet -they have no eyes to see._ No voice calls back to them to point out -the way. It is the instinct of life itself that is guiding them, the -same instinct, in a smaller way, that dragged man up bit by bit from -out of the black chaos of the past. In a thousand other ways, if one -will take the blindfold from his eyes and try to understand, he may see -this mightiest of all the forces of the earth--instinct--a vibrant, -breathing, struggling thing about him, a force so much more powerful -than his own, so all-consuming and indestructible that it stands out as -a giant mountain compared with the mole-hill of his own littleness. In -my own faith, I see it as a vast and inexhaustible reservoir of life, -of strength, of “upward climb,” of inspiration. I see it as the one -great, all-necessary force of creation--a force more precious to man -than all the mines of the earth, more precious than all the treasure of -the mints, if he would forget his greatness and reach out his hands to -it in the gladness of a new brotherhood. - -Dusk is falling. And, as I stop my work, here in the heart of a forest, -I seem to see the smiles of many who will read this, and I seem to hear -the low and unbelieving laughter of those who think themselves of the -flesh and blood of God. And I seem to hear their voices saying: - -“He is wrong. Nature is beautiful--sometimes. Also, it is crude. It -is rough. It is destructive. It is, half the time, a pest. While -we--we--have we not performed wonders? Have we not _proved_ ourselves -the chosen of God? Have we not created nations? Have we not built up -great cities? Have we not accumulated vast riches? Have we not invented -the Dollar? Are we not, in a hundred ways, shackling nature as a man -harnesses a horse, proving ourselves its masters, and it our slave?” - -I hear--and then I hear another voice, and softly, distantly, it says: - -“Yea! you are great--in your own eyes. You have made nations and -cities and great tabernacles--and you have created the Dollar. But, -when, for a moment, you cease the mad struggle you are making, you -are _afraid_. Yes; you cry out loudly then in your fear. You fight to -bring ghosts back, that they may tell you what happens when you lie -down and die. You cry out for a religion which will give you absolute -faith and comfort and cannot find it. You think you are great because -you have built skyscrapers and ride close to the clouds and have made -it possible to rush swiftly through a country choked with dust. But you -forget quickly. You forget how little you were--yesterday. You do not -tell yourself that you are a pest, perhaps the greatest of all. Yea; -you are great, and in your greatness you are wise, but all that which -you have achieved cannot give you that which you so vainly seek--the -contentment of a deep and abiding faith.” - - * * * * * - -_The Fourth Trail_ THE ROAD TO FAITH - - * * * * * - - - - -_The Fourth Trail_ THE ROAD TO FAITH - - -It has been some time since I sat down to work at my table under the -tall spruce trees. I have had an experience during the past five or six -days which is one of my rewards for letting nature live, and, for a -space, it quite completely upset me, so far as work was concerned. - -In other words, I have been having an experience with a species of -vermin which I love. The baby vermin of this particular species are, -to me, almost as lovable and quite as cute in their ways as human -babies; and for the adult vermin, the mothers and fathers of the -babies, I have a far greater love and respect than I have for many -males and females of my own breed. And, taking it all round, they are -a cleaner, handsomer, and more wholesome-looking lot than the average -crowd of humans, though they are--because of the mightiness of man’s -edict--nothing more than vermin. - -I am speaking of bears. A few years ago, one of my most thrilling -sports was to hunt them--blacks, grizzlies, and polars. Now I consider -them, in a way, my brothers, and I am having a lot of fun in the -comradeship. I am filled with resentment when I consider that in all -the states of this country, with the exception of two or three, the -law says these friends of mine are “vermin,” along with lice and fleas -and maggots, and that they may be killed on sight, babies and all, -because,--perhaps once in his lifetime,--a bear living very close to -civilization may make a meal of pig or lamb. If every human mother in -the land could hold a baby cub in her arms for five minutes, there -would be such an uprising of feminine sympathy that the laws would be -repealed. - -In thinking again of our mothers, I would give a good year of my -life if a million of them could have seen what I have seen during -the past few days. For, after all, I believe that nearly all great -movements toward better and bigger and more beautiful things must and -will begin with women. No amount of “equality” will ever take that -blessed superiority to men away from them. To-day, even religion, -shameful to men as the fact may be, rests on a pillar of women’s white -shoulders, and all the faith that the world possesses first finds -its resting-place in their soft breasts. And I look ahead to the day, -with unbounded faith of my own, when women will see, and understand, -and begin the great fight toward comradeship with all that other life -which is so utterly dependent about them now--life which throbs and -urges in every living thing from the grass-blade and the oak to the -“instinct” creatures of flesh and blood. Then shall we have a “religion -of nature,” with a force and a might behind it which will glorify the -earth, and man will come to realize that he is not God, but only an -insignificantly small part of God’s handiwork. And when man comes to -that point, where he casts off his arrogance and his ego, then will the -time have come for the birth of a satisfying and universal faith in -that great and all-embracing Power which we know and speak of in our -own language as God. - -And the very foundation of this faith, I believe, will be an -understanding of _all_ life, the acknowledgment at last that man -himself may not be a more precious physical manifestation of the -Supreme Vital Force than many of the other created things about him. - -It is because I believe that nature, the mother of all life, is trying -to teach us this great truth in a thousand or a million different ways, -in the smoke and grime and crush of big cities as well as in farm-land -and forest, that I come back to my little experience with the bears. - -About six or seven miles to the north of me is a great ridge, plainly -visible from one of the halfway limbs of my lookout spruce, a sort -of barrier which rises up between me and the still vaster hinterland -beyond it. Sometime in the past, a fire swept over it, so that now -it is covered with a gorgeous and splendid growth of young birch and -poplars, and virile patches of vines on which, a little later, there -will be an abundance of strawberries, raspberries, rose-berries, and -black currants. It is also richly sprinkled with mountain-ash trees, -which give promise of a yield of hundreds of bushels of fruit this late -summer and autumn. Altogether, it is an ideal feeding-range for wild -things, hoof, claw, and feathers. Three times I have traveled for miles -along the cap of this ridge. To me, in all its richness and promise, -it is a glorious manifestation of Life. It breathes under me and about -me. I can fairly hear its compelling youth bursting from its growing -leaves, its swelling fruits, its flowers, and from the mold that -pulses and throbs with the vital forces under my feet. I almost think I -could live and die on this ridge, or another ridge like it, and never -be at loss for company. - -On my first visit to the ridge, being overtaken by storm, I built me -a brush shelter in a lovely spot close to it, with a tiny creek of -spring-cold water not more than a dozen paces away. On my third and -last visit, I returned to this spot, and ran face on into my adventure. - -From the sheltered bower of balsams where I had built my wigwam, I -could look up a rolling, meadowy breast of the ridge, so perfect in its -adornment of vine and bush and small clumps of young trees that, to -one not entirely acquainted with the exquisite art of nature, it would -almost seem as though a human landscape-architect had “laid out” the -little paradise which was my hillside back yard. On this particular -morning, coming up quietly, my eyes were greeted by an amazingly pretty -spectacle. The green hillside, soft and velvety in the sunlight and -shadow of the morning, was in full possession of two families of black -bears. - -So close were the nearest of them to me that I dropped like a shot -behind a big rock, and the breath of air that was stirring being in my -favor, I was at a splendid vantage-point to take in the whole scene. -Within forty yards of me were a mother and three cubs, and a little -higher up--perhaps twice that distance--were a mother and two cubs. -At almost the very crest of the ridge were two more bears, which I at -first thought were adults. A closer inspection assured me they were -last year’s cubs, and possibly not more than a third grown, though to -which of the two mothers they belonged, if to either, I could not make -up my mind. Frequently, instead of setting out in life for itself, a -black bear cub will follow its mother through a second season, and I -judged this to be the situation here. - -For two hours, I did not move from my place of concealment. That -spectacle of motherhood and babyhood on the hillside, with the virile -and luxuriant life of nature pulsing and beating all about it, was -a new chapter in my book of religion. It was pointing out to me, in -perhaps a hundredth or a thousandth lesson, that all life is the same, -and that it is only language, or the want of language, that makes the -difference in the “life-relationship” of all created things. I could -fancy, as I lay there, just how the Supreme Arbiter of things had -given physical being to all this life that was about me, as well as -the life that was in me. It has all come from the same dynamo, so to -speak--a spark of it in each tree, a spark of it in each flower and -shrub, and blade of grass, a spark of it in each of the beasts of flesh -and blood on the hillside, and a spark of it in me. Our life was the -same. It had all come from the same vital source, from the same supreme -fount of existence. Yet how different were the forms it animated! Close -to my hand was a beautiful rock-violet, blue as the sky, its velvety -petals freckled with tiny flecks of gold; a few yards away, perched -among the rustling leaves of a birch, a brush-warbler filled the air -with melody; back of me, the tops of the thick balsams whispered -softly, and up there I could hear the grunting of the mother bears, -the squealing of the little cubs, and a gentle murmuring sound that -came from the ridge itself, as if all living things were fighting for a -language, struggling to give voice to something that was in them. - -I have had some amusement and a little discord over the teapot tempests -that so-called nature-scientists occasionally stir up among themselves -over the “humanizing” of wild life. Man’s ego has possessed him so -utterly that it is distasteful to him to concede anything “humanlike” -to any creature that is not in his own flesh and form. For my part, -loving all wild life as I do, I am proud and glad that it does not -possess more of our human qualities. If I write honestly of what has -come to me in my own wide experience in nature, I must--no matter how -unpleasant the statement may be--confess that wild life _does_ possess -a great many characteristics that are very “human,” and the ways of its -members are in many instances strangely the same. I could see little -difference between my bears on the hillside and two human mothers and -their children, except in their physical appearance, and the fact that -the humans would undoubtedly have made a great deal more noise. But the -bears were handsomer--begging the ladies’ pardon. Their sleek coats -shone like black satin in the sun, and the cubs were cute enough to -hug to death. But they were a worry to their mothers for all that, and -especially one of them, which appeared to be the hog-it-all member of -the family nearest me. Whenever the mother bear pawed over a stone or -pulled down a tender bush, this little customer was always there ahead -of the rest of the family, licking up the choicest grubs and ants and -getting the first mouthful of greens. Half a dozen times, the mother -slapped him with her paw, rolling him over like a fat ball. But there -could have been no very great corrective power in the cuffings, or else -he was toughened to them by usage, for he was back on the job again -without very much loss of time. - -For almost two hours, the bears fed on the hillside. Several times -the two families drew so near together that the cubs intermingled and -the mothers almost rubbed sides. I feel that the interest of this -particular page would be greatly increased for many of my readers -if I added a ferocious imaginary fight between the two mothers and -a bloody feud between the youngsters. Bears do fight when they -meet--sometimes--just like humans, only not as often. But it is my -duty to relate that these bears were at peace on this particular day, -and that they seemed to enjoy the mutual companionship. It was all so -fine that I had an impelling desire to go up on the hillside and become -a comrade with them. When the feeding was over, and the cubs were -wrestling and running about in play, I almost rose up from behind my -rock to call out my friendship to them. The lack of one thing held me -back--that one thing which all nature is crying out for--_a language_. -I feel they would have welcomed me could I have told them I was a -friend, and wanted to play with them, and make them a present of some -sugar. But instead of that this is what happened: - -In their play, two of the cubs had descended within twenty feet of my -rock. One of these was the gourmand. Somehow, he lost his balance, -rolled over, and came tumbling down. When he stopped he was not more -than half a dozen feet from me. As he brought his fat little body to -its feet he saw me. His eyes fairly popped. It seemed to me that for a -full minute he did not move or breathe. And during that same minute I -remained as still as a rock. In his amazement and his wonder, he was -the funniest thing I had ever seen, and in spite of myself, my face -broke into a grin. Instantly there came out of him a little, piggish -grunt,--and he was off. Up that hillside he went as if the world was -after him. He did not stop when he reached his mother and the other -cubs, but seemed to hit it still faster for the top of the ridge. The -mother looked after him, sniffed the air, and rose to her feet. In -half a minute, she was lumbering after him, the two remaining cubs -hustling ahead of her. - -A hundred yards away, the second mother bear took the warning. In a -very short time, they had all disappeared over the cap of the ridge. -I had not shown myself. I had made no sound. The wind was still in my -favor. Yet the frightened cub had given warning to them all. For no -other creature but man would they have fled like that. Even in the face -of a pack of wolves, the mothers would have turned to fight. Something -had told them that man was near--yet only the cub had seen and smelled -that man, and he had probably never seen or smelled another. Yet he -knew, and all the others knew, that man was the deadliest of all -enemies. And I am half convinced, as I write this, that nature has -at least the beginning of a universal language, that the centuries -and hundreds of centuries have given it four words, and these words -are: “Man is our enemy.” I might fancy that the winds carry these -words, that the tree-tops whisper them, that they are in the undertone -of running waters, that all life outside of man and man’s pitiably -few friends has, in some strange way, come to learn them. It is, I -confess, an elusive sort of fancy,--but it sets one to thinking. - -It makes one wonder, for instance, why man is so jealous of himself. -The Supreme Power is immeasurable, he tells himself. It has no such a -thing as limitation. Heaven, no matter in what form he may conceive -it, is utterly boundless. Yet he is jealous of it. He does not want to -concede that any other life will form a part of it but that of his own -breed. He has tried, through unnumbered centuries, to fool himself into -the belief that he is the one and only thing in all creation upon which -the Ruling Power of the universe has its guardian eye. He has tried -to make himself believe that he is the one toad in the huge puddle of -life. He has not conceded that an all-powerful but tender God might -love flowers and birds and trees and many other living things as well -as he loves man. And as I sit here under my spruce trees again, it -seems to me that, just because he has been so near-sighted, man has not -yet found a faith which is all-comforting and of which he is utterly -sure. - -I seem to see a very clear reason for this. In this age, though -still fettered by his egoism, man is not utterly blind to his own -deformities. As “civilization” progresses, he sees more and more what -a monster he has been in the past, and what a monster in many ways he -is to-day. He sees his breed committing every crime known to the ages, -from petty larceny to world-slaughters that devastate nations. He sees -everywhere the strong taking advantage of the weak. He sees millions go -hungry and cold that a few may profit. In great convention-halls, he -sees the “statesmen” that rule the destiny of a mighty nation cutting -capers and acting generally like a lot of silly little children. He -sees every man in a great game fighting to see who can accumulate the -most dollars, no matter at what cost to the others. He sees sickening -and disgusting fads come and go. He looks on a world-brothel of -iniquity, of discontent, of avarice and greed and butchery among men. -Nowhere does he see the stability, the dignity, and the mighty forces -of good that should walk hand in hand with “the chosen of God.” - -He is beginning to see himself, at last, as a contemptible specimen of -life--in spite of his brain and his inventions. - -He is beginning to understand that the most perfect airship his brain -will ever conceive cannot take him to heaven. - -He is beginning to realize that there is a thing greater than brain, -greater than mechanical progress. - -And as he comes to understand more and more how imperfect a thing he -is, the more unstable his faith becomes; and the sacrilegious thought -comes to him, unconsciously but with terrific force: “If I am the -chosen handiwork of God, then I can have no very great faith in the -judgment and workmanship of God.” - -And as the suspicion grows upon him that he may not be the “one and -only” child of God, he cries out wildly in these modern days for -evidence. He tries to bring spirits back from the dead that they may -offer him some proof. He quests vainly for “revelations” that may -satisfy him. He says with his mouth, “Yes; I believe absolutely in -God,” yet, in his heart, he knows that he is half lying,--because of -fear of what his neighbor will think if he speaks the truth. He wants -to believe there is a God. He wants to _know_ there is a God. Yet he is -afraid. - -And, personally, I am glad that the time has come when he is afraid. I -think it is the real beginning of his salvation and the dropping-away -of his egoism. To-day he is beginning to see all life as he did not -see it yesterday. And to-morrow his eyes will be wide open. - -That is my faith. I believe that God is greater than humanity has ever -conceived him to be. I think he is “a common sort of fellow,” and I -write these words with all the holy reverence of which the soul is -capable. I do not mean to imply that I think he is in my form, or in -any particular form. But he is Life. And it is his intention and his -desire that every living thing that is worthy of life be a part of him. -I am almost Indian in this faith. I can hear the buoyant, cheering call -of Life in a waterfall. The inspiration of it comes into my own body -from out of a whispering tree, from a bush glowing with bloom, from a -flower, from the song of a bird, from the rain itself. I find great -peace and contentment in my faith that this God is everywhere, and that -we may meet him face to face fifty times a day if we throw off the hard -shell of our egoism, and realize that all nature is God--and that we, -as men and women and children, are a part of that all-embracing nature. - -Even now the sun is filtering through the tree-branches upon this -partly written page. I look at it, and I see again the inconceivable -greatness of the Supreme Power, and my own microscopic littleness. For -we of the earth have thought that the earth is great, and that we, -having inherited the earth, are of all things greatest. Yet is that sun -which warms and lights my page as I write--more than a million times -as large as the earth--more than eight hundred thousand miles from -one end of its diameter to the other. And the still more stupendous -fact is that this sun is itself only a small bit of mechanism in the -mighty forces of infinity, for there are a _hundred million other -suns in space_, each lighting and warming its own worlds--innumerable -worlds--each peopled with its own type of flesh and blood, and each -possessing, perhaps, its own peculiar forms of “civilization” and its -own savagery. - -Just that great, and vast, and all-embracing is the handiwork of that -vital force which rules all infinity--and to which we have given the -name of God. - -And here I emphasize again that great truth which nature has impressed -upon me--that, just so long as man considers himself the one and only -chosen part of God, and therefore next to him in greatness, just that -long will his egoism and self-conceit blind him to the greatness and -glory of the real truth, and to the glory of the faith which might be -his. I believe that Christ was a great teacher, that he was a great -student of his times, and incorporated into his teachings all that was -highest and best in the teachings of other great men who had lived -and died before him. And I have always regretted that Christ was -unfortunate to have for his historians a set of men who were unequal -to their task, many of them narrow-minded, moved by “visions” and -superstitions instead of fact, men who believed in all the miracles of -the imagination from conversing with angels to stopping the sun,--men -utterly incapable of writing down calmly and truthfully those mighty -teachings of Christ which, had they been written as they were spoken, -would have meant so much for the world to-day. For I believe, in my -own heart, that Christ was the greatest lover of nature that history -knows of to the present day. I believe that in the many years of his -“disappearance,” Christ was not only studying the teachings of the -past, but that, close to the breast of nature, he was learning the -splendid truths of life--all life--which were afterward the very heart -and soul of his messages to mankind. - -I believe that Christ, could he return to earth to-day, would say: -“My biographers have given you a wrong impression of me, and they -have misquoted me. What my soul was called upon to teach nineteen -hundred years ago, they have clothed in the raiment of superstition, of -misunderstanding, and of impossible miracle. For I am a man, even as -thee and thine. But I have found the true faith. And that faith, as I -told them then, depends utterly upon the dropping of the scales of self -from man’s eyes, and his understanding of _all life_. For that I gladly -died.” - -The greatest regret I have is that Christ, as a man, did not foresee -more clearly the tremendous influence his teachings were to exert upon -humanity through the ages. Had he guessed this, he would have written -down with his own hand those teachings which were so carelessly left -to the mercy of superstitious--frequently fanatical--and at nearly all -times incapable biographers. For Christ, of all men that ever lived, -was undoubtedly one of the best and the most humble. His teachings -came straight from his heart. He did not intend that they should be -smothered in hyperbole, metaphor, and rhetorical embroidery until no -two living men could agree absolutely upon their meaning. I believe -that he spoke simply and directly, for only in that way could he have -reached the hearts of the masses. And I believe that the greatest of -all his lessons was the lesson of humility. As a man, he had dropped -his egoism, had submitted himself to the Master of all life, and in -that submission he had found the truth, and the glory of a great -faith. The misfortune of the humanity to follow in after-ages was that -the world of Jesus Christ was small--so small that by word of mouth -he could reach from end to end of it. Had he dreamed that there were -still undiscovered worlds so great that in comparison his own was but a -handful of dirt out of a wagon-load, I am convinced within myself that -the world to-day would not be struggling to understand a faith written -in parables and riddles, for Christ would have set his own hand to the -task which others so poorly accomplished. - -With such a priceless inheritance in the form of Christ’s own -handiwork, I am equally sure that humanity would no longer have -an excuse for its egoism, or be ashamed of that humility which -is necessary to the understanding of life, and essential to the -possession of a deep and abiding faith. - - * * * * * - -I have, at times, heard intelligent people express amazement that -I should dare to place human life on an equal level with all other -life, that I should so “blaspheme the Creator” as to say that the -life in a two-legged animal who can talk is the same as that in a -flower or a plant or a tree or some other animal which cannot talk. I -have sometimes allowed myself to point out the innumerable advantages -possessed over man by many living things which have no language, as -we know language. I could fill a dozen volumes with word-pictures of -the thousands and tens of thousands of advantages which living things -outside of man possess over man, and which, if man could achieve, would -be stupendous miracles. But man, collectively, is blinded by his egoism -to the marvelous attainments of all life that does not walk and talk as -he walks and talks. When confronted by the incontrovertible wonder and -apparent miracle of other life as compared with his own I have nearly -always found that men and women fall back, as a last resort, on the -absurd and shallow argument: “But this other life you speak of has -only instinct. It cannot talk; it cannot reason, and therefore it is -impossible for it to have a soul.” - -Once a beautiful young matron said to me, “There is much in your creed -that is inspiring and beautiful, but it reaches a point where it is -inconceivable, for you must concede that a human being is the most -perfect of all created things.” - -I gave her an exquisite rose which I had plucked from my garden only a -few minutes before. - -“There are, outside of men and women and children, innumerable things -more perfectly created than this flower,” I said. “Are you, in your -youth and beauty, as perfect as that rose?” - - * * * * * - -And yet I know that such arguments as these, innumerable though they -might be, cannot prevail until men and women bring themselves face -to face with nature itself, filled with a willingness and a yearning -to understand. They point out the pests of life--the serpent, the -deadly insects, the plants that scar and poison; yet they cannot -see themselves as perhaps the deadliest and the most relentless of -all pests. For it is one of the mysterious laws of Creation that -every living thing--flower, and tree, and beast, and man--has a pest -born unto it; and unto these pests other pests are born, until at -last,--when the thing is analyzed,--a pest is a pest only in so far as -its enemy, and not its friends, judge it to be a pest. If the world -to-day were eliminated of human pests as each individual in the world -might judge for himself, how many of us would be left alive to-morrow? - -And always, when I have listened to the age-old arguments prompted by -man’s egoism and self-glorification, I love to return to the peace -and the comfort of nature, whether that nature be in the form of a -deep forest, a clover field, an orchard, or the little back plot of a -crowded city home. And if I am where there is no cool earth to stand my -feet upon, I find my peace and rest in the printed pages which describe -that nature-world of mine. From the most beautifully written volumes -to the honest pages and unembellished fact of farm-journals, I have, -times without number, found enthralling interest, consolation, and the -strength and courage of the cool and glorious earth itself. Nature’s -Bible is not hard to find. It is everywhere, living, breathing, -printed--the one universal and ever-present Book of Life. - -Whenever I think of the commonest of human arguments: “But this other -life you speak of has only instinct. It cannot talk; it cannot reason, -and therefore it is impossible for it to have a soul,” my mind always -travels back to a certain incident in my experience as a refutation. I -could, had I the space, answer that argument with a hundred compelling -facts; I might answer it from the point of the flower, the vine, the -tree, the grass that carpets the earth, but I always think first of the -particular tragedy I am going to describe, because of the chief human -actor in it, and because this actor was, in my humble estimation, one -of the most physically perfect of her species. - -I will not give her name. She is the daughter of one of the best known -men in the nation, and one of the foremost scientists of the world; and -should she happen to read these lines, I hope that she will see, with a -new vision and a new understanding, that “triumph” of years ago. - -I think she was about twenty when my outfit happened to join trails -with her father’s in the far north. She will remember that early -afternoon when we camped together close to the Cochrane, in the -Reindeer Lake country. - -I believe that I am quite reasonably sure of myself when I say that -she was the most beautiful woman I had seen up to that time or have -seen since. It is simply because of her perfection that she has -always appealed as having furnished to me one of the most dramatic -object-lessons of my experience. She was athrill with life. She -worshiped her father. She loved the sun, the sky, the wind, the trees, -the whole world. Life seemed to have given her everything that it -possessed--the rare coloring of the most beautiful flower under her -feet, a form that was divine, hair and eyes that no artist could paint, -and, I think, one of the sweetest voices I have ever heard. She is, -I have heard, beloved in her own environment. She is a worker for -human betterment, and spends much of her time in actual work with the -poor. Not long ago she was responsible for the building of a home for -unfortunate little children. - -That day in camp there was a sudden excitement. Three of the Indians -had driven a cow moose, a yearling, and a bull into a small cover. It -was a splendid chance for the girl. I can see her eyes glowing with -the fires of excitement now, as she caught up her rifle and hurried -with her father and brother and the Indians to the refuge-place of -the family of moose. She was placed at the head of an open space, and -the moose were driven out. First came the yearling calf, then the -mother, and after them came the old bull. The girl’s lovely face, as I -looked at it, was flushed. It seemed as though I might hear the excited -beating of her heart as she waited, quivering with the desire to kill. - -She fired first at the calf, and then at the mother--and from that -moment all that was big and beautiful and noble in life seemed to -leave her own body and enter that of the old bull moose. For the first -shot had struck the calf, laming it so that it could run but slowly, -with the mother urging it on from behind. Not once in the moments that -followed did the mother run ahead of her calf. And then I beheld a -thing that I believe to be as noble as anything that man has ever done -in all the ages. Believe, if you will, that the magnificent old bull -had no reason. Believe, if you cannot sacrifice your egoism, that he -did not think. Do not give him the credit of possessing a heart or a -soul or feelings, if that sacrifice of egoism hurts you. But consider -what happened. - -The old bull ran alongside the cow, alongside the calf, and then, by -reason or instinct, he _knew_ what had happened. He did not forge -ahead. He did not race for safety, but deliberately he dropped behind, -turned himself broadside, and stopped, _making of his own splendid body -a barrier in the path of the bullets_. - -I heard the girl’s rifle cracking. Twice I saw the bull flinch, and I -knew that he was struck. Then I heard her cry out, almost frantically, -that her last shot was gone. In the same instant, her brother ran up -from the cover and thrust his own rifle into her hands. - -“Give it to him, sis!” he cried. “Give it to him!” - -The big bull had turned. He staggered a bit as he ran, but in a hundred -feet he had overtaken the cow and the calf. The calf was going still -more slowly, and in my desire to see the cow and the bull break away, I -shouted. - -Almost simultaneously with the sound of my voice, the bull stopped -again. He placed himself broadside, at perhaps a three-quarter angle, -so that, by turning his head slightly, he was looking back at us. He -was directly between the cow and the calf, and the girl’s bullets -continued to rip into him. I remember that I cried out in protest, but -she did not sense my words. Every fiber of her being was strung to -the thrilling achievement of that crime. She was deaf and blind to the -nobility of the great-hearted beast who, in my eyes, was deliberately -sacrificing his life. The flaming lust to kill had driven all other -things out of her heart and soul. Her father had run up, and brother -and father cried out in triumph when the old bull sagged suddenly in -the middle and almost fell to his knees. Four times he had been struck -when again he went on. - -From my experience in big-game hunting, I knew that he was done for. -Yet, even in these moments when he was dying, the glorious soul of him -was unafraid. Three hundred yards away he stopped and turned again, -giving the cow and the calf a last chance to reach the timber. The -girl fired her last shots, and missed. Then the bull swung after the -cow and the calf and disappeared in the cover. But, as he went, there -came back to us a terrible, deep-chested cough, and my heart gave up -its hope. It told me the heroic old bull was shot through the lungs. -I did not hurry after the girl and her father and brother as they ran -over the blood-stained trail. I continued to hear the coughing for a -few moments. Then it was silent. When I came up to them, just inside -the timber, the three were standing in triumph close to the dead body -of the bull. Hardly more than twenty paces from it was the yearling -calf, dying, but not quite dead. The brother had ended it with a -revolver-shot. - -And then I looked at the creature who had committed this double murder. -Many times I had done this same crime, but with me, crude and rough, -with all the inborn savagery of man, killing had not seemed quite so -horrible. And standing there, a little later,--red-lipped, her face -aflame, her eyes glowing, exquisite in her beauty,--the girl had her -picture taken in triumph as she stood with one booted little foot on -the neck of her victim. - -When I hear of the vaunted human soul, and when men and women tell me -there is no soul but the soul of a human, my mind goes back to that -day. I might tell of a hundred other instances that are convincing unto -myself, but that one stands out with unforgettable vividness. - -I am sure, for instance, that the soul of a flower once saved my life. -This is not unusual, or even remarkable, for the souls of flowers -have saved unnumbered lives, as well as giving cheer and courage to -countless millions; and when we die it is still the Soul of the Flower -that watches over us in our resting-places. No place in the world do -flowers live more beautifully than in our gardens of the dead, cheering -us when we come with our grief to the place of our lost ones, giving -us courage to go on. Take the Soul of the Flower away from us, and the -world would be hard and bleak to live in. - -To me, the soul is synonymous with life. I do not disassociate the -two. When we breathe our last, our life--our soul--is gone. The two, I -believe, are one. When we pluck a flower we destroy neither, but when -we tear it up by the roots so that it dies, then has its soul, or its -life, gone the same way as that of man who dies. I have spent many -wonderful hours in those gardens of the dead which every city, hamlet, -and countryside must have. To me, there are only beauty and the glory -of God in a cemetery. It seems to me that there, if never before, one -must come to understand the brotherhood of all life. It seems to me -that the very stillness and peace of a resting-place of the dead softly -whisper to us the great secret which those who are lying there have at -last discovered--that life is the same, that its only difference is in -form and manifestation. I seem to feel that I have come into the one -place where there are only charity and faith and good will, and I have -always the thought--which to me gives courage and hope--that this is -why the flowers and the trees are so beautiful and so comforting there. -I have stood in other cemeteries which, to the passing eye, have been -barren and ugly, where man has lent but very feebly a helping hand, but -even there, if I looked a little closer, I have found the Soul of the -Flower, the same peace, the same tranquillity, perhaps even greater -courage to inspire one to “keep on.” - -I have a case in point, so convincing to myself that all the preaching -in the world could not change my sentiment in the matter. I happened, -at this particular time, to be traveling alone in the Northland, and -when a certain accident befell me, the nearest help I knew of was at -a half-breed’s cabin between twenty and thirty miles away. Thirty -miles is not a very great matter in a country of paved roads and -level paths, but it is a far distance in a country of dense forest -and swamp, without trails or guide-posts--and especially when one is -badly crippled. Like the most amateurish tenderfoot, I took a chance -along the face of a cliff near a small waterfall, slipped, fell, and -came tumbling down a matter of thirty feet with a sixty-pound pack and -my rifle on top of me. In the fall, my foot received a terrific blow, -probably on a projecting ledge of rock. - -The man who has faced many situations is usually the man who is -cautious, and though I had just committed an inexcusable error in my -carelessness, I now lost no time in putting up my small silk tent while -I could still drag myself about. It was well I did so. For ten days -thereafter, I was not able to rest a pound of weight upon my injured -foot. - -With the music and refreshing coolness of the waterfall less than a -hundred feet from my tent door, and the creek itself not more than -a quarter of that distance, I was most fortunately situated under -the circumstances. The first morning after my fall found me almost -helpless. Every move I made gave me excruciating pain. My entire foot -and ankle, and my leg halfway to the knee, were swollen to twice their -normal size. This first day I dragged myself to a sapling, cut it as I -lay on my side, and made me a rough crutch of it. The second day, my -entire lower limb was swollen until it had lost all semblance to form, -and was so badly discolored that a cold and terrible dread began to -grow in me. I had only thirty cartridges. I fired ten that first day, -in the futile hope that some wandering adventurer might have drifted -within the sound of my rifle. Occasionally I hallooed. Night of the -second day found me in the beginning of a fever, and, at a cost of -physical agony, I prepared myself for the worst--placed my possessions -within the reach of my hands, and dragged myself up from the creek with -a small pail of water. - -I shall never forget the dawn of the third day. Racked with pain, with -the fever in my blood, my leg now stiff as a board to the thigh, I was -still not blind to the beauty of the morning. The rising sun first -lighted up the waterfall, then it fell in a warm and golden flood where -I had made my camp. In that silence, broken only by the music of the -water, every soft note that was made by the wild things came to me -distinctly. It was a morning to put cheer and hope into the heart of a -dying man. Then my eyes turned, and, a few feet beyond the reach of my -hand, I _found something looking at me_. - -Yes; to me, in that moment, it was a thing living and vibrant with -life, and yet it was nothing more than a flower. It grew on a stem a -foot high, and the face of it made me think of one of our home-garden -pansies; only, the flower was all one color, with longer petals--a -soft, velvety blue. It seemed to have turned to face the morning sun, -and, in facing the sun, it was squarely facing me--a piquant, joyous, -laughing little face, asking me as clearly as in words, “What can -possibly be the matter with you on this fine morning?” - -I am not going into the psychology or soul-language of that flower. I -am not going to argue about it at all, but simply tell what it did for -me. Perhaps, if you want to lay it all to something, you may say it was -because I was out of my head a part of the time with fever. But that -flower was my doctor through the days of torture and hopelessness that -followed. Now and then a bird sang near me; occasionally a wild thing -would come and peer at me curiously, then go its way. But the flower -never left me, and only turned its face partly away from me in the -hours of its evening worship. For its God was the sun. It faced the sun -in the morning, wide-awake and open. Late in the afternoon, it would -turn a little on its stem, and with the setting of the sun, its soft -petals would begin to close, and it would go to sleep, like a little -child, with the coming of dusk. Day after day, it grew nearer and more -of a beloved comrade to me. - -After the fourth day, it did not, for an instant, allow me to think -that I was going to die. Never for an instant did it lose its cheer and -confidence. It was there to say “Hello!” to me every morning, and there -to say “Good-night” to me when the shadows grew deep--and all through -the day it talked to me, and bobbed its little head in the whispers of -the breezes, and I had the foolish sentiment, at times, that it was -actually flirting with me. I do not think I realized how precious it -had become to me until, one day, there came a terrific thunder-storm. -I thought the first blast of the wind and beat of rain were going to -destroy my comrade, and, almost in a panic, I dragged myself right and -left, forgetful of pain, until I had built a protection about my flower. - -That was the sixth day, and, from that day, the swelling and the pain -began to leave my limb. On the tenth, I could move about a little on my -feet. On the fifteenth, I was prepared to undertake my journey again. -I felt a real grief in leaving that solitary flower. It had become -a part of me, had encouraged me in my blackest hours, had cheered -and comforted me even in the darkness of nights, because I knew it -was there--my little comrade--waiting for the sun. For me, it had -individualized itself from among all the other flowers in the forest. -And now, when I was about to go, I saw that the flower itself had about -lived the span of its life; in a very short time it would fade and die. -On the morning I left, the petals were drooping, and its tiny face did -not look up at the sun and at me as brightly as before, and I fancied -that I could hear its little voice saying, “Please take me with you.” -And I did. Call it foolish and trivial sentiment if you will, but the -flower and I went together, and afterward I wrote a novel and called it -“Flower of the North.” - -I have often heard strong men say, “Oh, that is merely a matter of -sentiment. Life is too hard and real for a thing like that.” - -I agree with them to an extent. Sentiment does not play a large part -in the world to-day. For sentiment, as that word is understood by the -millions, is the heart and soul of all that is good and great. Without -sentiment in the hearts of a man and a woman, there cannot be the -fullness of real love between them, even though the law has made them -man and wife. Without sentiment, no good act is ever done from the -heart out. Without sentiment--a sentiment that warms the soul as a fire -warms a cold room--there will never be a deep and comforting faith. I -have seen this “co-operation of rational power and moral feeling” make -plain faces beautiful, and I have seen the lack of it make others hard -as rock. Selfishness, egoism, the desire to get everything possible out -of life, no matter at what expense to others, is its antithesis. - -As I write these last pages, I have at hand facts which seem to show -that sentiment, and therefore faith, is as nearly dead as it has ever -been. For science in all the great nations of the earth is planning and -plotting frantically for the extermination of their fellow men, and -this, in the hour when all the world is crying out for a faith, is what -is being achieved: - -Deadly gases that will make gunpowder and the rifles anachronisms, that -in the next war will depopulate whole regions, men, women, and little -children alike. - -Perfection of the lethal ray, which will shrivel up and paralyze human -beings over vast areas, irrespective of whether they are combatants or -not. - -Development of plans for “germ-warfare,” whereby whole nations will be -infected by plagues. - -And then consider the words of one great military scientist of the -English-speaking race: “Germ-warfare was tried on a small scale in the -late war, and its results have been promising. The method of its use -was in the poisoning of water supplies with cholera and typhus germs, -and the loosing of dogs inoculated with rabies and of women inoculated -with syphilis into the enemy country. _Here apparently is a promising -beginning from which vast developments are to be hoped for._” - -A promising beginning--vast developments expected for the -future--typhus--rabies--the commercial breeding of diseased women. - -Yes; the world is crying aloud for a great faith, even as it smashes -itself into moral fragments on the rocks of its own egoism and its own -selfishness. But there has come a rent in its armor, and as it commits -crimes and plans for still greater crimes, it also begins to realize -its colossal wickedness. And in its terror it shrieks aloud for a -manifestation of the Divine Power. It demands proof. - -And again I say that the proof is so near that the world looks over -its head--and does not see it. Not until man’s egoism crumbles will he -understand. For ghosts will not come back from the dead to quiet his -frenzies, nor will angels descend from out of the heavens. The Divine -Power is too great and all-encompassing for that. God, speaking of that -Power as God, is not a trickster. He is not a mountebank. He is not a -lawyer arguing his case. He is Life. And this Life That Never Dies has -no favorites. Such is my humble faith. - - * * * * * - -A long time has passed since I wrote these pages. All day the -countryside has lain in that sleepy, golden shimmer that is the pulse -of Indian summer. The nights are touched with frost. There is glory in -the warmth of the sun. - -I am in a little valley that I love--Sleepy Hollow, I call it. -The farmhouse is old and unpainted, and it has stood on its stone -foundation for almost a century. The barn is sagging in the middle, -and between the barn and the house is an old well that a long-dead -grandfather rigged when the timber in the hollow knew the howl of -wolves and the screech of bobcats. Crowding close up to the back of the -old house is an orchard of apple and cherry trees, so old they could -tell many an interesting story if they could talk. - -And all about the sides and the front of the house are great trees--a -huge cottonwood, and ancient oaks from which the Indians may have shot -squirrels with their bows and arrows two hundred years ago. The “woman -of the house” has been in an invalid’s chair for years, and the husband -does little but care for her. Therefore Life has crept up and almost -inundated the place. The grass grows high and uncut. Wild flowers bloom -in the yard. Quail come to feed with the chickens. And beyond this, all -about, is the whisper of corn fields in growing-time, the ripples of -fields of wheat and oats and rye, the music of the mowing-machine and -the lowing of cattle. In this little old house of Sleepy Hollow, there -is a woman who has not walked for years, and who will never walk again; -and there is a little man with a great fierce mustache who watches -her tenderly, and who knows that he must go on watching her until the -end of her time--and yet in this house there is happiness, and also -_a great faith_. And nature seems to rejoice in that faith. Birds -build their nests under the porches. There is melody in the trees. At -night, crickets sing in the long grass under the open windows, and the -whippoorwills come and perch on the roof under the old sycamore. - -Here are suffering--and peace; few of the riches of man, but an -unlimited wealth of contentment and faith. These two, prisoned to the -end of their days, have found what all the world is seeking. The little -old house of the hollow, even with its tragedy, is glad. And life has -made it so, the understanding of life, the voice and living presence of -life as it whispers about me now in the golden sheen of Indian summer. - -And its whisper seems to be, “Men are seeking me, reaching out for me, -crying for me--yet they do not find me. They are looking far, and I am -very near--so far that they look over and beyond me when I am waiting -at their feet. When at last they see me, and understand, then will they -have discovered the greatest of all treasures--Faith!” - - * * * * * - -Transcriber’s Notes: - -Punctuation has been made consistent. - -Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in -the original publication. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of God's Country; The Trail to Happiness, by -James Oliver Curwood - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD'S COUNTRY; TRAIL TO HAPPINESS *** - -***** This file should be named 53073-0.txt or 53073-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/0/7/53073/ - -Produced by Roger Frank, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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