of ruined castles seated on sloping shores by foaming seas, their smooth
lawns reaching to the foam.

At one point, as I came out upon a ledge which overlooked the valley, I
perceived my horse's shadow floating on the phantom ocean far below me,
a dark equestrian statue encircled with a triple-ringed halo of fire. In
all my mountain experiences I had never seen anything so marvelous.

At another time while riding up the trail, I perceived above my head a
far-stretching roof of seamless cloud. As I rose, coming closer and
closer to it, it seemed a ceiling just above my reach, then my head
merged in it. A kind of dry mist surrounded me--and for ten or fifteen
minutes I mounted through this luminous, strangely shrouding, all
pervasive, mountain cloud. My horse, feeling his way with cautious care,
steadily mounted and soon we burst out into the clear sunlight above.
While still the mist curled about my horse's hoofs, I looked across a
shoreless ocean with only Cloud Peak and its granite crags looming above
its surface.

I describe these two spectacular effects out of many others merely to
suggest the splendors which inspired me, and which, as I imagined,
enriched the daily walk of the forest guard. "To get into my story some
part of this glory, my hero must be something of a nature lover--as many
rangers are," I argued, and this was true. Before a man will consent to
ride the lonely road which leads to his cabin high in the forest, he
must not only have a heart which thrills to the wonder of the lonely
places, he must be self-sufficing and fearless. I rode with several such
men and out of my experiences with them I composed the character of
_Ross Cavanagh_.

The actual writing of this novel was begun on my forty-ninth birthday at
my desk in the old Homestead, and I started off with enthusiasm
notwithstanding the fact that Fuller, who was visiting me at the time,
expressed only a tepid interest in my "theme." "Why concern yourself
with forestry?" he asked. "No one wants to read about the ranger and
his problems. Grapple with Chicago--or New York. That's the only way to
do a 'best seller.'"

Henry always amused me but never so much as when tolerating rural joys.
He was the exact opposite of my _Cavanagh_. Everything pastoral wearied
him or irritated him. The "yelping" of the robins, the "drone" of the
katydids, the "eternal twitter" of the sparrows infuriated him. The
"accursed roosters" unseasonably wakened him in the