Do you know why you are getting the best work to do here?" asked
one of the new friends.

"Why?"

"It's because you're _white_."

This position he retained until May of the following year, meantime
contributing to the editorial page of _The Saturday Evening Post_.
Then an attack of typhoid lost him his position; but he had made
loyal friends, who delighted to come to his aid. Something of the
quality of his own loyalty is expressed in an entry in his diary
shortly after leaving the hospital. "Many good lessons in human
nature. Learned much about who are the real friends, who may be
trusted _to a finish_, who are not _quitters_, but it shall not be
written." During the period of his convalescence which he spent
among the Shawangunk Mountains of Sullivan County, New York, he
decided that if it were possible he would not go back to newspaper
work. A friend had sent him a letter of introduction to the editor
of _Outing_, which in August he presented, and was asked to bring
in an article on the preservation of the Adirondack Park as a
national playground. The article proved acceptable, and
thenceforth most of his work was done for that magazine.

In September he wrote his friend, Mr. James A. Leroy.

"MY DEAR JIM,--I think that regardless of your frightful neglect I
shall be obliged to write you another note expressing sense of
under-obligationness to you for that letter. It is the best thing