258 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
hoped, as I passed beyond the periphery of 
sound, that instinct and desire might direct their 
rolling ball of vibrations toward the one whose 
ear, whether in antenna, or thorax or femoral 
tympanum had, through untold numbers of past 
lives, been attuned to its rhythm. 
Two thousand miles north of where I sat, or 
ten million, five hundred and sixty thousand feet 
(for, like Bunker Bean’s book-keeper, I some- 
times like to think of things that way), I would 
look out of the window one morning in days to 
come, and thrill at the sight of falling flakes. 
The emotion would very probably be sentiment 
—the memory of wonderful northland snow- 
storms, of huge fires, of evenings with Roosevelt, 
when discussions always led to unknowable 
fields, when book after book yielded its phrase 
or sentence of pure gold thought. On one of the 
last of such evenings I found a forgotten joy-of- 
battle-speech of Huxley’s, which stimulated two 
full days and four books re-read—while flakes 
swirled and invisible winds came swiftly around 
the eaves over the great trophies—poussant des 
soupirs,—we longing with our whole souls for an 
hour of talk with that splendid old fighting scien- 
tist. 
