344 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



of the past, into which the pilgrim of to-day should 

 pass reverently as into aisles hallowed by centuries. 

 Through them roll the great rivers to the sea. 

 Standing in the shade of the huge ferns, I have 

 seen the canoes of the Indians glide by swiftly and 

 in silence. The men at prow and helm are as 

 graven images of bronze. A minute passes and 

 they are gone — whither ? But the pines and 

 cedars remain. 



Now and again you hear the mournful cry of the 

 loon, the bird banshee of the lakes, — a cry so plain- 

 tive, so pitiful, that it would seem to be the sobbing 

 protest of life against laws under which life has 

 being. Or the silence is fractured by the crash of 

 some falling tree, and you remember that a few 

 miles away is a logging camp, and that the years 

 of even the patriarchs are numbered. 



To those who have lived in this Silent Land, and 

 who are constrained to return to the noisy market- 

 places of the world, there comes a nostalgia of the 

 woods and streams, a yearning love that feeds upon 

 the memory and is never satisfied with its food. 



What message do these solitudes hold ? What 

 secret ? And for whom will they break the silence 

 of the centuries ? Surely some Daniel will inter- 

 pret for us the writing upon these shining walls. 

 And the message, we may predict, will be strong 

 and tender and true, — a gospel of purity and peace, 

 of rest and of renunciation also. 



May we live to read that message ! 



