hat he
was most proud of was that he won and still holds, the five-mile running
record of his school. He was intensely interested in birds at this time,
and spent all his spare hours in the woods, studying bird-life. The
result was a series of articles on birds, published in various
scientific journals,--papers whose columns are not usually open to high
school contributors.

Then came a college course at the University of Michigan, with vacations
spent in cruising about the Great Lakes in a twenty-eight-foot cutter
sloop. After graduation he worked for a time in a packing house, then
hearing of the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, he set off with
the other gold-diggers. He did not find a mine, but the experience gave
him a background for two later novels, _The Claim Jumpers_, and _The
Westerners_.

He went east for a year of graduate study at Columbia University. Like
many other students, he found a friend in Professor Brander Matthews,
who encouraged him to write of some of his western experiences. He sold
a few short stories to magazines, and his first novel, _The Claim
Jumpers_ was accepted by Appleton's. _The Westerners_, his next book,
brought him $500 for the serial rights, and with its publication he
definitely determined upon making authorship his calling. But it was not
authorship in a study. _The Blazed Trail_ was written in a lumber camp
in midwinter. He got up at four o'clock, wrote until eight, then put on
his snowshoes and went out for a day's work. When the story was finished
he gave it to the foreman of the camp to read. The man began it after
supper, and when White got up next morning at four, he found him still
reading, so he felt that the book would succeed.

Another year he made a trip to the Hudson Bay country, and on his return
wrote _Conjurer's House_. This was dramatized by George Broadhurst, and
was very successful on the stage. With Thomas Fogarty, the artist, he
made a long canoe trip, and the resulting book, _The Forest_, was
illustrated by Mr. Fogarty. A camping trip in the Sierra Mountains of
California was followed by the writing of _The Mountains_. His next
book, _The Mystery_, was written jointly by Mr. White and Samuel Hopkins
Adams. When it was finished they not only divided the proceeds but
divided the characters for future stories, White taking Handy Solomon,
whom he used again in _Arizona Nights_, and Darrow, who appeared in _The
Sign at Six_.

Then without warning, Mr. Wh