First French Foot-Prints Beyond the Lakes. 93 



During several years of frontier life, I have constantly fallen in 

 with frontier men, who hover in the wilderness beyond the ut- 

 most verge of settlement. Villages, or at least ranchmen, follow 

 them but only, as Paddy prays the blessing of the Lord may fol- 

 low his enemies all the days of their lives — that is, so as never to 

 overtake them at all. Change of base and new departures are as 

 familiar to them as to any politician. The only grain they ever 

 sow is wild oats. 



The French found more fun in woodcraft than the English 

 couldo The one could thrive where the other would starve. It 

 is an old saying that a French cook will make more out of the 

 shadow of a chicken than an English one can of its substance. 

 When a French army, near Salamanca, was cut off from supplies 

 for a week by Wellington, he thought it a miracle that they did 

 not surrender. The truth was that they had subsisted all the 

 while on acorns. For more than a week Nicollet's only food was 

 bark, seasoned with bits of the moss which the Canadians named 

 rochtripe. But he was not starved out. The Eoman empire 

 spread widely east and west, but never very far north. The fact 

 is strange. To account for it, some say that Roman noses were 

 too long, and so were nipped off by Jack Frost. The French are 

 a snub-nosed race and so could better brave blizzards. 



There is a strange elation when we discover with how many so- 

 called necessaries we can dispense, and while having nothing, yet 

 possess all things which we absolutely need. Detecting new 

 capabilities, whether of daring doing or enduring, we seem to 

 become new beings and of a higher order. We discover new 

 Americas within ourselves. 



According to the Greek sage, he is nearest the Gods who has 

 fewest wants. In proportion, then, as we become self-sufficing, 

 we approximate to the Gods. Not without exultation did the 

 adventurer learn to make all things of bark — not only baskets, 

 dishes, boats and beds, but houses and food. Every tree^ when 

 he perceived its bark to be rougher and thicker on the north side, — 

 became for him a compass-plant. In his whole manner of life 

 " the forester gained," says Parkman, '* a self-sustaining energy, 

 as well as powers of action and perception before unthought of, — 



