THE LONG TRAIL 



joyed Swinburne and Shelley in ranching 

 days in the Bad Lands, because they were 

 so totally foreign to the life and the coun- 

 try — and supplied an excellent antidote to 

 the daily round. Father read so rapidly 

 that he had 1:o plan very carefully in 

 order to have enough books to last him 

 through a trip. He liked to have a mix- 

 ture of serious and light literature — chaff, 

 as he called the latter. When he had 

 been reading histories and scientific dis- 

 cussions and political treatises for a cer- 

 tain length of time, he would plunge into 

 an orgy of detective stories and novels 

 about people cast away on desert islands. 

 The plans for the Brazilian expedition 

 came into being so unexpectedly that he 

 could not choose his library with the usual 

 care. He brought Gibbon's Decline and 

 Fall of the Roman Empire in the Every- 

 man's edition, and farmed out a volume to 

 50 



