their shady solitudes, would not enjoy them as a residence; and yet I
have sometimes thought I should love to spend the summers in a forest
home, alone with nature, with my pen and books, a fishing-rod and
rifle to supply my wants, and a friend to talk with occasionally.

"Many years ago, I was out on the Western prairies, some sixty days
beyond the region of bread; we had encamped on the banks of a stream,
along which a narrow belt of timber grew. More than a quarter of a
century has passed since I took that trip to look upon the Rocky
Mountains. There was no gold region laying beyond them then, or
rather, the enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon had not discovered its
existence, and the greed of the white man had not made the trail over
the mountains, or through their dismal passes, a familiar way. Along
in the afternoon we were visited by a trapper, who had, in his
wanderings, discovered the smoke of our camp fires. He was a
weather-beaten, iron man, of the solitudes of nature, who had wandered
away from his home in New England, and from civilization, into that
limitless wilderness. He was glad to see us, inquired the news from
the outer world, talked about York State, Vermont, the Bay State, and
then, after an hour's converse, as if his social instincts and
sympathies had been satisfied, he shouldered his rifle and started off
across the plain, towards a belt of timber lying dim and shadowy, like
a low cloud, upon the distant horizon. I watched him for an hour or
more, as he trudged away over the rolling prairie, growing less and
less to the view, until he became like a speck in the distance, and
then vanished from my sight. There was a solemn sort of feeling stole
over me, as this lonely hunter wended his way into the deep solitudes
of the prairies, to be alone with nature, communing only with himself
and the things scattered around him by the great Creator. He seemed to
be contented and happy. How different were his tastes from yours or