DAYS 153 



that wonderful western sky while he 

 smoked the peace-pipe of his eventide 

 in the land that he loved. So peacefully, 

 indeed, that had he been asked to write 

 his own epitaph, now that the evening 

 of his life was far spent and the shadow 

 of night was nigh, he might, with a not 

 unwilling heart, have written thus : 



" If fate should say, 'Thy course is run,' 



It would not make me sad ; 

 All that I wished to do is done, 

 All that I would have, had/' 



His thoughts would often, on such 

 occasions, slowly wander back to the 

 days when he was a boy, splashing for 

 troutlets in the mountain stream, or to 

 the time when, long ago, he chased the 

 corncrake in the meadows where the 

 glistening buttercups and wild forget- 

 me-nots grew. And it was with a grati- 

 fied rather than a longing spirit that he 

 dreamed of those hours again. For 

 years he had led a lonely but not an 



