t I should have found him just when he was lost in the
brush and did not know that I was within hundreds of miles of him. "John
Muir, John Muir, where have you come from?" Then I told him the story of
my feeling his presence when he entered the valley last evening, when he
was four or five miles distant, as I sat sketching on the North Dome.
This, of course, only made him wonder the more. Below the foot of the
Vernal Fall the guide was waiting with his saddle-horse, and I walked
along the trail, chatting all the way back to the hotel, talking of
school days, friends in Madison, of the students, how each had
prospered, etc., ever and anon gazing at the stupendous rocks about us,
now growing indistinct in the gloaming, and again quoting from the
poets--a rare ramble.

It was late ere we reached the hotel, and General Alvord was waiting the
Professor's arrival for dinner. When I was introduced he seemed yet more
astonished than the Professor at my descent from cloudland and going
straight to my friend without knowing in any ordinary way that he was
even in California. They had come on direct from the East, had not yet
visited any of their friends in the state, and considered themselves
undiscoverable. As we sat at dinner, the General leaned back in his
chair, and looking down the table, thus introduced me to the dozen
guests or so, including the staring fisherman mentioned above: "This
man, you know, came down out of these huge, trackless mountains, you
know, to find his friend Professor Butler here, the very day he arrived;
and how did he know he was here? He just felt him, he says. This is the
queerest case of Scotch farsightedness I ever heard of," etc., etc.
While my friend quoted Shakespeare: "More things in heaven and earth,
Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," "As the sun, ere he
has risen, sometimes paints his image in the firmament, e'en so the
shadows of events precede the events, and in to-day already walks
to-morrow."

Had a long conversation, after dinner, over Madison days. The Professor
wants me to promise to go with him, sometime, on a camping trip in the
Hawaiian Islands, while I tried to get him to go back with me to camp in
the high Sierra. But he says, "Not now." He must not leave the General;
and I was surprised to learn they are to leave the valley to-morrow or
next day. I'm glad I'm not great enough to be missed in the busy world.

_August 4._ It seemed strange to sleep in a paltry hote