long intervals but usually
invisible, is the free roamer of the wilderness--hunter, prospector,
explorer, seeking he knows not what. Lithe and sinewy, he walks erect,
making his way with the skill of wild animals, all his senses in
action, watchful and alert, looking keenly at everything in sight, his
imagination well nourished in the wealth of the wilderness, coming into
contact with free nature in a thousand forms, drinking at the fountains
of things, responsive to wild influences, as trees to the winds. Well
he knows the wild animals his neighbors, what fishes are in the streams,
what birds in the forests, and where food may be found. Hungry at times
and weary, he has corresponding enjoyment in eating and resting, and all
the wilderness is home. Some of these rare, happy rovers die alone among
the leaves. Others half settle down and change in part into farmers;
each, making choice of some fertile spot where the landscape attracts
him, builds a small cabin, where, with few wants to supply from garden
or field, he hunts and farms in turn, going perhaps once a year to the
settlements, until night begins to draw near, and, like forest shadows,
thickens into darkness and his day is done. In these Washington
wilds, living alone, all sorts of men may perchance be found--poets,
philosophers, and even full-blown transcendentalists, though you may go
far to find them.

Indians are seldom to be met with away from the Sound, excepting about
the few outlying hop ranches, to which they resort in great numbers
during the picking season. Nor in your walks in the woods will you be
likely to see many of the wild animals, however far you may go, with the
exception of the Douglas squirrel and the mountain goat. The squirrel is
everywhere, and the goat you can hardly fail to find if you climb any of
the high mountains. The deer, once very abundant, may still be found on
the islands and along the shores of the Sound, but the large gray wolves
render their existence next to impossible at any considerable distance
back in the woods of the mainland, as they can easily run them down
unless they are near enough to the coast to make their escape by
plunging into the water and swimming to the islands off shore. The
elk and perhaps also the moose still exist in the most remote and
inaccessible solitudes of the forest, but their numbers have been
greatly reduced of late, and even the most experienced hunters have
difficulty in finding them. Of bea