ugh to be left behind, or the boss lengthens
our vacation, as the case may be. But for the present there is a "when"
or an "if" not to be ignored.

So we content ourselves with lesser adventures in contentment, which
after all, for solid pleasureable happiness, are perhaps the best. And
we who live in the Pacific Playland find mountain, forest and river,
fish and game, to our hearts' content; with a modicum of enterprise it
is no trick at all to devise trips worth taking, whether viewed from the
standpoint of woodsman, mountaineer, hunter, or fisher, and all within a
hundred miles of home.

Therein, indeed, lies the answer to this query, which a transplanted
Easterner hears ever and anon:

Why do you live in the West?

For when it comes right down to the truly important things of life, like
fly-fishing, mountaineering, and canoeing, the Pacific Coast is a region
of unsurpassed satisfaction. Out-of-doors is always on tap, and when the
hackneyed call of the red gods comes, it is easily answered.

Adventures in contentment truly--the utter content of simplicity and
isolation. Also, ventures in optimism, for where the trails wind
mountainward there is just one place for the pessimist, and that is at
home.

[Illustration: A trailside dip in a mountain lake]

[Illustration: "Sliding down snow-fields is fun, though chilly"]

The infallible Mr. Webster defines success as "the prosperous
termination of an enterprise." Mr. Webster is wrong, however, when it
comes to camping, as my friend Mac and I recently demonstrated beyond
possibility of argument. The prime object of the trip in question was
game. We were out ten days and returned with no game; the venison we
counted ours still roams the hills, and the grouse are sunning
themselves--except the half-dozen the puppies ate! It came about in this
wise. We started in sunshine and forthwith encountered the business
end of a storm, comprised, in about equal parts, of blizzard, tropical
downpour, and tornado. It continued for four days, soaked and half-froze
us, and swept the highlands clean of game, in preference for sheltered
valleys, far away and inaccessible to us. We hunted persistently,
however, and walked countless miles. Incidentally, we lost our horses,
and spent one strenuous day tracking them. Finally Fortune relented a
trifle and we bagged a half-dozen grouse, which we treasured and bore
homeward for our family tables. But a persistently unkind fate elected
tha