tables spread with dainty fare you will be hungry for the joy of
the hunt, and for the angler's sylvan feast. In proud cities you
will weary for the sight of a mountain trail; in great cathedrals
you will think of the long, arching aisles of the woodland; and
in the noisy solitude of crowded streets you will hone after the
friendly forest.

This is what will happen to you if you eat the leaves of
that little vine, Wood-Magic. And this is what happened to
Luke Dubois.



I

The Cabin by the Rivers

Two highways meet before the door, and a third reaches away to
the southward, broad and smooth and white. But there are no
travellers passing by. The snow that has fallen during the
night is unbroken. The pale February sunrise makes blue shadows
on it, sharp and jagged, an outline of the fir-trees on the
mountain-crest quarter of, a mile away.

In summer the highways are dissolved into three wild
rivers--the River of Rocks, which issues from the hills; the
River of Meadows, which flows from the great lake; and the
River of the Way Out, which runs down from their meeting-place
to the settlements and the little world. But in winter, when
the ice is firm under the snow, and the going is fine, there