of the world!

Perhaps that is what an outing is for--to strip one down to the lean
essentials, press in upon one the glorious privilege of being one's
self, unique in all the universe of innumerable unique things. Crouched
close to your wilderness campfire, the great Vision comes easily out of
the smoke. Once again you feel the bigness of your world, the tremendous
significance of everything in it--including yourself--and a far-seeing
sadness grips you. Living in the flesh seems so transient, almost a
pitiful thing in the last analysis. But somehow you feel that there is
something bigger--not beyond it, but all about it continually. And you
wonder that you ever hated anyone. You know, somehow, there in the smoky
silence, why men are noble or ignoble; why they lie or die for a
principle; why they kill, or suffer martyrdom; why they love and hate
and fight; why women smile under burdens, sin splendidly or
sordidly--and why hearts sometimes break.

And expanded by the bigness of the empty silent spaces about you, like a
spirit independent of it and outside of it all, you love the great red
straining Heart of Man more than you could ever love it at your desk in
town. And you want to get up and move--push on through purple
distances--whither? Oh, anywhere will do! What you seek is at the end of
the rainbow; it is in the azure of distance; it is just behind the glow
of the sunset, and close under the dawn. And the glorious thing about it
is that you know you'll never find it until you reach that lone, ghostly
land where the North Star sets, perhaps. You're merely glad to know that
you're not a vegetable--and that the trail never really ends anywhere.

Just now, however, the longing for the abstract had the semblance of a
longing for the concrete. It always has that semblance, for that matter.
You never really want what you think you are seeking. Touch the
substance--and away you go after the shadow!

[Illustration: "ATOM" SAILING UP-STREAM IN A HEAD WIND.]

[Illustration: TYPICAL RAPIDS ON UPPER MISSOURI.]

Around the bend lay Sioux City. Around what bend? What matter? Somewhere
down stream the last bend lay, and in between lay the playing of the
game. Any bend will do to sail around! There's a lot of fun in merely
being able to move about and do things. For this reason I am overwhelmed
with gratitude whenever I think that, through some slight error in the
cosmic process, the life forces that glow in me might have been