and living. The ghastliness and "ghostliness" of the crime 

 committed by fire brought to my mind Dante's Inferno and I 

 wondered if the live trees that died in those awful conflagra- 

 tions of but a few years before, had suffered the tortures the 

 wonderful Dante pictured. 



Rolled up in my blanket, sleep came quickly that night, but 

 I awoke next morning with the picture of the night before 

 still in my mind. 



"A cup of coffee," I said to my guide, "and we'll move on." 



When the team was harnessed and our "buckboard" began 

 moving away, I rejoiced. I bade my driver hurry. I wanted 

 to leave behind me the burned-over forest. I wanted to es- 

 cape from the walls of that tomb in which we had camped. 

 I wanted to see nature alive, to feel the coolness of fresh 

 woods, to get the smell of trees and leaves and growths that 

 had the sap of life. 



"Three hours," my driver said, "and we will come to the 

 lakes on the international border. There it's green." 



We passed rotting logs which the bears had ripped to the 

 heart in search of ants. But we saw no bear. We passed a 

 spring which gave forth a mineral water that smacked of 

 salt and which the deer sometimes came to drink. But we 

 saw no deer. As the day advanced, a small flock of wild 

 ducks flew over our heads in the direction of a lake. They 

 did not stop. No song birds flitted about in the trees. The 

 land was deserted. 



Exultation That Comes When Life Is Seen Again Amid the 



Branches. 



Shortly before noon, away off on a distant ridge, we again 

 saw trees with leaves and branches, trees clothed in the gor- 

 geous green so wonderful in Minnesota's forests. I wanted 

 to shout, to run toward them and clasp them in my arms, to 

 thank God I was back in the living world again and exult 

 over the life I felt in my blood. I think that ages ago, I 

 must have been a wild animal living in the woods, because 

 surely others do not know the joy that comes to me when I 

 get back close to nature and feel the vigor of the earth and 

 drink in the power it exudes. It's a medicine that's worth 



6 



