164 A LOVER OF SOLITUDE. 



occasional tramps among their shady solitudes, would not 

 enjoy them as a residence ; and yet I have sometimes 

 thought I should love to spend the summers in a forest 

 home, alone with nature, with my pen and books, a fishing- 

 rod and rifle to supply my wants, and a friend to talk with 

 occasionally. 



"Many years ago, I was out on the Western prairies, 

 some sixty days beyond the region of bread ; we had en- 

 camped on the banks of a stream, along which a narrow belt 

 of timber grew. More than a quarter of a century has 

 passed since I took that trip to look upon the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. There was no gold region laying beyond them then, 

 or rather, the enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon had not disco- 

 vered ita existence, and the greed of the white man had 

 not made the trail over the mountains, or through their dis- 

 mal passes, a familiar way. Along in the afternoon we 

 were visited by a trapper, who had, in his wanderings, disco- 

 vered the smoke of our camp fires. He was a weather- 

 beaten, iron man, of the solitudes of nature, who had wan- 

 dered away from his home in New England, and from civi- 

 lization, into that limitless wilderness. He was glad to see 

 us, inquired the news from the outer world, talked about 

 York State, Varmount, the Bay State, and then, after an 

 hour's converse, as if his social instincts and sympathies had 

 been satisfied, he shouldered his rifle and started off across 

 the plain, towards a belt of timber lying dim and shadowy, 

 like a low cloud, upon the distant horizon. I watched him 

 for an hour or more, as he trudged away over the rolling 



