viii A CONFESSION 



perhaps he hesitates to voice the call which, un- 

 heard by his fellows of the work-a-day world, 

 sounds ever and again to him without warning, 

 insistent and impelling amid the comforts and 

 pleasures and duties of conventional life. 



Know then, you to whom the message of this 

 book is meaningless, that the " underlying motive' ' 

 which prompted the journeys recorded in the fol- 

 lowing pages, was— flight of a spirit that would be 

 free from the crying newsboys and the pressure of 

 conventions; in a word,— the lust of adventure. 

 Those who open this volume to view thje contents 

 as of a game bag, would better close it and thus 

 save time— and money. There is here the hunting 

 and the killing of big and formidable game, but 

 'twas not for that alone or even chiefly I trav- 

 elled far from the habitations of man. The 

 mere destruction of game, always has been of 

 least interest to me in my wilderness wanderings, 

 and I hope I have never given any other impres- 

 sion. It is not the killing but the hunting which 

 stirs the blood of a sportsman— the contest between 

 his skill, persistence, endurance, and the keen 

 senses and protective environment of his quarry. 

 I acknowledge to the joy which comes in triumph 

 over the brute at the end of fair and hard chase— 

 not in the pressing of the trigger, which I never 

 do, except to get needed meat or an unusual trophy. 



