His restless
feet were weary.

However, this was only a mood with him. A night's sleep brought back his
courage, and his energy to a most amazing degree, and I was again called
upon to show him the "sights" of the city--that is to say, we once more
viewed the Stock Yards, the Masonic Temple and Lincoln Park. He also
asked me to go with him for a sail across the Lake, but at this point I
rebelled. "I am willing to climb tall buildings or visit the Zoo, but I
draw the line at a trip to Muskegon."

With guilty conscience I watched him start off for the dock alone, but
this sentiment on my part was wasted. A score of "comrades" on the boat
more than made up for my absence, and at sunset he returned beaming,
triumphant, perfectly satisfied with his day's sail. "Now, I'm ready to
go home," he announced.

After putting him on the train next day I opened my desk in my quiet
room on Elm Street, with a feeling of being half-in and half-out of the
state of matrimony. In some ways I liked being alone. A greater power of
concentration resulted. With no disturbing household influences, no
distracting interests, I wrote all the morning, but at night, when my
work was done, my mind went out toward my young wife. To have her moving
about the room would have been pleasant. To walk with her to the studio
would have been a joy. As a novelist, I bitterly resented all the minute
domestic worries, but as a human being I rejoiced in my new
relationship. "Can I combine the two activities? Will being a husband
and a householder cramp and defeat me as a novelist?"

These questions every writer who is ambitious to excel, must answer for
himself. So far as I was concerned, the decision had been made. Having
elected myself into the ranks of those who were carrying forward the
immemorial traditions of the race, there was no turning back for me. I
ended the week by going out to Eagle's Nest Camp, where Zulime met me to
renew the delight of our days of courtship.

Even here, I did not neglect my task. Wallace Heckman gave me a desk in
the attic and there each morning I hammered away, eager to get my
material "roughed out" while it was hot in my memory. I often wrote
four thousand words between breakfast and luncheon. One story took shape
as a brief prose epic of the Sioux, a special pleading from the
standpoint of a young educated red man, to whom Sitting Bull was a kind
of Themistocles. Though based on accurate information, I intended it to
be n