What sport and travel it afforded me! What toil and sweat it caused
me! What food and rest it brought me! What charming places it led me
through! What interesting people it ranged beside me! What romance it
unfolded before me! and into what thrilling adventures it plunged me!

But before we paddle down the winding wilderness aisle toward the great
stage upon which Diana and all her attendant huntsmen and forest
creatures may appear, I wish to explain that in compliance with the
wishes of the leading actors--who actually lived their parts of this
story--fictitious names have been given to the principal characters and
to the principal trading posts, lakes, and rivers herein depicted.
Furthermore, in order to give the reader a more interesting, complete,
and faithful description of the daily and the yearly life of the forest
dwellers as I have observed it, I have taken the liberty of weaving
together the more interesting facts I have gathered--both first- and
second-hand--into one continuous narrative as though it all happened in
a single year. And in order to retain all the primitive local colour,
the unique costumes, and the fascinating romance of the fur-trade days
as I witnessed them in my twenties--though much of the life has already
passed away--the scene is set to represent a certain year in the early
nineties.

ARTHUR HEMING.




THE DRAMA OF THE FORESTS