THE STORY OF AN OUTING 



"You seem very curious, and you seem to think I've 

 done wrong. Now I'll tell you all about it. Twenty 

 years ago this man here and myself pre-empted one 

 hundred and sixty acres each in southern Oregon. I 

 cleared up, built buildings, and raised my family. The 

 neighbors got pretty thick. I had a chance to sell out, 

 and sold out; had all my stock and loose property and 

 thirty-eight hundred dollars in the bank. My friend 

 here leased his place for three years, and we started for 

 Bear Lake. If I had had money enough to have bought 

 a section, six hundred and forty acres, when I pre- 

 empted in Oregon, I'd have been a rich man now. I 

 expected to pre-empt one hundred and sixty acres here, 

 buy some more and live here ten or fifteen years and 

 make the growth in price, and then I'd have money 

 enough to last me out and take good care of my family. 

 Now what's the matter with that reasoning? Didn't 

 I try to do it all right?" 



u Yes. The misfortune is that you did not inquire 

 more about this country. They could have told you in 

 Vancouver. How long have you been coming?" 



"Five months and two weeks." 



"You practically crossed the state of Oregon and the 

 state of Washington, and have come seven hundred and 

 fifty miles in British Columbia to this place, camping 

 along the route; you expected to find good land cheap, 

 because of its remoteness." 



"Yes." 



This man typified the wanderlust, the landlust that 

 inspire the pioneer settlers. They cannot endure 

 neighbors; they hunger for the solitude of forest or 

 plain; they have a kinship with wild life, and eke out 



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