i8 CANADIAN NIGHTS 



has passed in most interesting talk. One good 

 turn deserves another, but with all the will in the 

 world I don't know how I can repay you. I am 

 fresh from affairs and men, but the great world 

 and the ways of it have but little changed since 

 you left it not so very many years ago, and neither 

 current politics nor recent society doings, scandal- 

 ous or otherwise, would interest you. Instead of 

 that you shall tell me something of your own life 

 in the woods and on the plains and mountains. 

 I'm only an amateur of the prairies and the 

 Rockies, and I dare say you have forgotten twice 

 as much as I shall ever know." 



" There you're wrong," said Willie ; " I don't 

 think, leading this kind of life, that one ever 

 forgets what happens in it. You see it's all there 

 is, and to a solitary man memory takes the place 

 of a library and of society. If I'm sitting over 

 the fire and want diversion all I have to do is to 

 run over in remembrance some of my early ex- 

 periences ; the more you think, the more you 

 remember. It's like taking out a book that 

 you've once read and half forgotten, and finding 

 it full of bright pictures." 



" Well, we have no books here," I answered. 



