does not last long in its most exaggerated form, and after a season of
wildness refined gentlemen from cities are not more cruel than hunters
and trappers who kill for a living.

Dwelling apart in the depths of the woods are the various kinds of
mountaineers,--hunters, prospectors, and the like,--rare men, "queer
characters," and well worth knowing. Their cabins are located with
reference to game and the ledges to be examined, and are constructed
almost as simply as those of the wood rats made of sticks laid across
each other without compass or square. But they afford good shelter
from storms, and so are "square" with the need of their builders.
These men as a class are singularly fine in manners, though their
faces may be scarred and rough like the bark of trees. On entering
their cabins you will promptly be placed on your good behavior, and,
your wants being perceived with quick insight, complete hospitality
will be offered for body and mind to the extent of the larder.

These men know the mountains far and near, and their thousand voices,
like the leaves of a book. They can tell where the deer may be found
at any time of year or day, and what they are doing; and so of all the
other furred and feathered people they meet in their walks; and they
can send a thought to its mark as well as a bullet. The aims of such
people are not always the highest, yet how brave and manly and clean
are their lives compared with too many in crowded towns mildewed and
dwarfed in disease and crime! How fine a chance is here to begin life
anew in the free fountains and skylands of Shasta, where it is so easy
to live and to die! The future of the hunter is likely to be a good
one; no abrupt change about it, only a passing from wilderness to
wilderness, from one high place to another.