e tried and failed than never to have tried at all, I
may say that this affords very poor manna for my hunger."

He received this answer:--

"Young man"--(emphasis was placed upon the young)--"you are too slow.
You are asleep, stagnant, dormant, hibernating. The whole world is
'beating you to it.' Get over your baby superstition about love, and
'get busy.'"

The letter dropped from his fingers as though it had been his monthly
grocery bill. "Heavens!" he exclaimed, "here is the solution to the
whole mystery.--Forget love and 'get busy.'" Instead of expecting to be
loved, he would love. If he could not get one who would want _him_, he
would get one he wanted himself.

Now, he had had such an admiration for the fair sex as a whole, that he
could not concentrate his attention on the individual one. He had been
trying to extract a cinder from the eye of the opposition when he could
not see properly owing to having a large obstacle in his own eye.
However, he proceeded to "get busy." But what vision would he "get busy"
on? Every woman had an attraction peculiar to herself, one of which
could not be said to extinguish the other. And then, most of them were
"staked off." One fellow or another had "strings" on every one he
approached. But he kept on fishing with all his might. In the meantime
it came to pass that the girls continued to cast their spells upon
almost anyone but him; even the itinerant stranger who just chanced
along "hitting the high spots," and "travelling on his face" came in for
large portions of the "sweet stuff" that was being cast lavishly abroad.

It seemed cruel that he who had such an admiration for those on the
other side of the house, and who had such an ambition to own one as an
asset, should be so unmercifully neglected. His efforts to catch a wife
by the legitimate method, according to his idea, had ended like a
fishing expedition in the off season in the Thompson river. About this
time he found that the nomads were catching all the fish. He made up his
mind to become a nomad and be a wanderer on the face of the Cariboo
district. He could not love.

He resigned his position in Ashcroft and migrated up the Cariboo road.
He invaded Lillooet, Clinton, 150 Mile House, Soda Creek, Quesnel,
Barkerville and Fort George. To secure a wife he became an itinerant.
Within the space of a year he was back at his position at Ashcroft more
lonely than ever. It was of no avail--he was hoodooed. He could not
l