of that trail would have appealed to his native sense 

 of humor. 



Down through the fur-inhabited swamps and valleys, 

 up over the hilly haunts of fox and wolf that lay be- 

 tween; down to the valley again, and up once more to 

 the towering hill ; and so it went unswerving on its 

 way with never a thought of aching thighs, or burn- 

 ing lungs, or the tug-strap straining at the swaying 

 pack. O'er outcropped rocks and scattered boulders, 

 through gullied gravel and spring-soaked clay, it led 

 serenely on intent on dreams of the furs to come. 



"The evil that men do lives after them." The mus- 

 cles of old Jim Geseek have long ago rebelled at the 

 strenuous grade of those rising hills, his traps are for- 

 gotten or tended by a younger hand, he himself, is per- 

 haps following a line of traps that never fail in the 

 happy hunting grounds of the world beyond, but his 

 trail lives on. 



Many a heavy-laden man has scaled those stony 

 heights since then : Indian, white man, trapper, ranger, 

 prospector, scientist, lumbermen, women, summer tour- 

 ist. Their destinations have been wide scattered ; their 

 purposes varied, but they all have followed that same 

 old trail. Followed it not because there was an easier 

 way, but because man is wont to follow the beaten 

 track. And so they have climbed those hills for all 

 these years because Jim Geseek was an Indian and a 

 trapper, and because the trail he chose happened to 

 lead to the best canoe routes in the United States, to 

 possible iron mines, to unsurpassed lakes, to a primeval 

 wilderness teaming with romance. 



