f he thinks one
is trying to get the best of him, he can look after the shekels as well
as any one. One day in Yosemite when we were to go for an all day's
tramp and wished a luncheon prepared at the hotel, on learning of
the price they were to charge, he turned his back on the landlord and
dispatched one of us to the little store, where, for little more than
the hotel would have charged for one person, a luncheon for five was
procured, and then he really chuckled that he had been able to snap his
fingers at mine host, who had thought he had us at his mercy.

I see I have kept Mr. Muir close to the footlights most of the time,
allowing Mr. Burroughs to hover in the background where he blends with
the neutral tones; but so it was in all the thrilling scenes in the
Western drama--Mr. Muir and the desert, Mr. Muir and the petrified
trees, Mr. Muir and the canon, Mr. Muir and Yosemite; while with "Oom
John," it was a blending with the scene, a quiet, brooding absorption
that made him seem a part of them--the desert, the petrified trees, the
Grand Canon, Yosemite, and Mr. Burroughs inseparably linked with them,
but seldom standing out in sharp contrast to them, as the "Beloved
Egotist" stood out on all occasions.

Perhaps the most idyllic of all our days of camping and tramping with
John of Birds and John of Mountains was the day in Yosemite when we
tramped to Nevada and Vernal Falls, a distance of fourteen miles,
returning to Camp Ahwahnee at night, weary almost to exhaustion, but
strangely uplifted by the beauty and sublimity n which we had lived and
moved and had our being. Our brown tents stood hospitably open, and out
in the great open space in front we sat around the campfire under the
noble spruces and firs, the Merced flowing softly on our right, mighty
Yosemite Falls thundering away in the distance, while the moon rose over
Sentinel Rock, lending a touch of ineffable beauty to the scene, and a
voice, that is now forever silenced, lent to the rhymes of the poets its
richness of varied emotion, as it chanted choicest selections from the
Golden Poems of all time. We lingered long after the other campers
had gone to rest, loath to bring to its close a day so replete with
sublimity and beauty. Mr. Burroughs summed it up as he said good-night:
"A day with the gods of eld--a holy day in the temple of the gods."

JOHN BURROUGHS: AN APPRECIATION

"John is making an impression on his age--has come to stay--has