Drifting 



179 



the trackless marsh a meadow ; wild life is 

 largely a thing of the past ; silence, both day 

 and night, replaces sound. No, not that ; 

 but only the minor sounds are left. There 

 are still the cry of the fish-hawk and the sweet 

 song of the thrush. No stags now swim the 

 river, but there remain the mink and the 

 musk-rat. It has not been long since I saw 

 a migration of meadow-mice, and at night, I 

 am sure, many an animal dares to breast the 

 stream, a mile wide though it be. Too 

 cunning to expose itself by day, it risks its 

 life at night ; and how tragic the result when, 

 nearly at the journey's end, it is seized by a 

 lurking foe ; dragged down, it may be, by a 

 snake or a turtle ! 



The world is just as full of tragedy as ever, 

 and, let us hope, as full of comedy. In a 

 bit of yonder marsh, above which bends the 

 tall wild rice, there is daily enabled scene 

 after scene as full of import as those which 

 caused the very forest to tremble when the 

 wolf and panther quarrelled over the elk or 

 deer that had fallen. 



It has been insisted upon that a goal-less 

 journey is necessarily a waste of time. If 

 on foot, we must keep forever on the go ; if 



