n!"

"And a prosperous return," was the ironical answer of the dauntless
ruler over the Hudson's Bay.

"Sure now, Rufus," said Father Holland to me a year afterwards, "'twas a
prosperous return he had!"

Fortunately, I had my choice of scouts, and, by dangling the prospects
of a buffalo hunt before La Robe Noire and Little Fellow, tempted them
to come with me.

CHAPTER XII

HOW A YOUTH BECAME A KING

When the prima-donna of some vauntful city trills her bird-song above
the foot-lights, or the cremona moans out the sigh of night-winds
through the forest, artificial townsfolk applaud. Yet a nesting-tree, a
thousand leagues from city discords, gives forth better music with
deeper meaning and higher message--albeit the songster sings only from
love of song. The fretted folk of the great cities cannot understand the
witching fascinations of a wild life in a wild, free, tameless land,
where God's own hand ministers to eye and ear. To fare sumptuously, to
dress with the faultless distinction that marks wealth, to see and above
all to be seen--these are the empty ends for which city men engage in a
mad, feverish pursuit of wealth, trample one another down in a strife
more ruthless than war and gamble away gifts of mind and soul. These are
the things for which they barter all freedom but the name. Where one
succeeds a thousand fail. Those with higher aims count themselves happy,
indeed, to possess a few square feet of canvas, that truly represents
the beauty dear to them, before weeds had undermined and overgrown and
choked the temple of the soul. That any one should exchange gilded
chains for freedom to give manhood shoulder swing, to be and to
do--without infringing on the liberty of others to be and to do--is to
such folk a matter of no small wonderment. For my part, I know I was
counted mad by old associates of Quebec when I chose the wild life of
the north country.

But each to his taste, say I; and all this is only the opinion of an old
trader, who loved the work of nature more than the work of man. Other
voices may speak to other men and teach them what the waterways and
forests, the plains and mountains, were teaching me. If "ologies" and
"ics," the lore of school and market, comfort their souls--be it so. As
for me, it was only when half a continent away from the jangle of
learning and gain that I began to stir like a living thing and to know
that I existed. The awakening began on the westward journey;