f the great
forest steal in on your dulled faculties to flow over them in a tide
that rises imperceptibly. You glide as gently from the artificial to
the natural life as do the forest shadows from night to day. But at
the other end the affair is different. There you awake on the appointed
morning in complete resumption of your old attitude of mind. The tide
of nature has slipped away from you in the night.

Then you arise and do the most wonderful of your wilderness traveling.
On those days you look back fondly, of them you boast afterwards in
telling what a rapid and enduring voyager you are. The biggest day's
journey I ever undertook was in just such a case. We started at four
in the morning through a forest of the early spring-time, where the
trees were glorious overhead, but the walking ankle deep. On our backs
were thirty-pound burdens. We walked steadily until three in the
afternoon, by which time we had covered thirty miles and had arrived at
what then represented civilization to us. Of the nine who started, two
Indians finished an hour ahead; the half breed, Billy, and I staggered
in together, encouraging each other by words concerning the bottle of
beer we were going to buy; and the five white men never got in at all
until after nine o'clock that night. Neither thirty miles, nor thirty
pounds, nor ankle-deep slush sounds formidable when considered as
abstract and separate propositions.

In your first glimpse of the civilized peoples your appearance in your
own eyes will undergo the same instantaneous and tremendous revulsion
that has already taken place in your mental sphere. Heretofore you
have considered yourself as a decently well appointed gentleman of the
woods. Ten to one, in contrast to the voluntary or enforced simplicity
of the professional woodsman you have looked on your little luxuries of
carved leather hat-band, fancy knife sheath, pearl-handled six-shooter,
or khaki breeches as giving you slightly the air of a forest exquisite.
But on that depot platform or in presence of that staring group on the
steps of the Pullman, you suddenly discover yourself to be nothing less
than a disgrace to your bringing up. Nothing could be more evident
than the flop of your hat, the faded, dusty appearance of your blue
shirt, the beautiful black polish of your khakis, the grime of your
knuckles, the three days' beard of your face. If you are a fool, you
worry about it. If you are a sensible man, you do