There was something very fine in the blunt, honest words of the old man,
whose name had ever been sweet with honour.

"And the chief thing is that a man live up to his own standard," said
Lambert. "Isn't that so, Dick?--you're the wise man."

"Every man should have laws of his own, I should think; commandments of
his own, for every man has a different set of circumstances wherein to
work--or worry."

"The wisest man I ever knew," said Frank, dropping his cigar, "was a
little French-Canadian trapper up in the Saskatchewan country. A priest
asked him one day what was the best thing in life, and he answered: 'For
a young man's mind to be old, and an old man's heart to be young.' The
priest asked him how that could be. And he said: 'Good food, a good
woman to teach him when he is young, and a child to teach him when he is
old.' Then the priest said: 'What about the Church and the love of God?'
The little man thought a little, and then said: 'Well, it is the same--
the love of man and woman came first in the world, then the child, then
God in the garden.' Afterwards he made a little speech of good-bye to
us, for we were going to the south while he remained in a fork of the Far
Off River. It was like some ancient blessing: that we should always have
a safe tent and no sorrow as we travelled; that we should always have a
cache for our food, and food for our cache; that we should never find a
tree that would not give sap, nor a field that would not grow grain; that
our bees should not freeze in winter, and that the honey should be thick,
and the comb break like snow in the teeth; that we keep hearts like the
morning, and that we come slow to the Four Corners where man says Good-
night."