l show you my pets tame an' untamed, an'
tell you how it's man that makes any creature wild--how easy they are
to tame--an' how they learn to love you. An' there's the life of the
forest, the strife of it--how the bear lives, an' the cats, an' the
wolves, an' the deer. You'll see how cruel nature is how savage an'
wild the wolf or cougar tears down the deer--how a wolf loves fresh, hot
blood, an' how a cougar unrolls the skin of a deer back from his neck.
An' you'll see that this cruelty of nature--this work of the wolf an'
cougar--is what makes the deer so beautiful an' healthy an' swift an'
sensitive. Without his deadly foes the deer would deteriorate an' die
out. An' you'll see how this principle works out among all creatures of
the forest. Strife! It's the meanin' of all creation, an' the salvation.
If you're quick to see, you'll learn that the nature here in the wilds
is the same as that of men--only men are no longer cannibals. Trees
fight to live--birds fight--animals fight--men fight. They all live
off one another. An' it's this fightin' that brings them all closer an'
closer to bein' perfect. But nothin' will ever be perfect."

"But how about religion?" interrupted Helen, earnestly.

"Nature has a religion, an' it's to live--to grow--to reproduce, each of
its kind."

"But that is not God or the immortality of the soul," declared Helen.

"Well, it's as close to God an' immortality as nature ever gets."

"Oh, you would rob me of my religion!"

"No, I just talk as I see life," replied Dale, reflectively, as he poked
a stick into the red embers of the fire. "Maybe I have a religion. I
don't know. But it's not the kind you have--not the Bible kind. That
kind doesn't keep the men in Pine an' Snowdrop an' all over--sheepmen
an' ranchers an' farmers an' travelers, such as I've known--the religion
they profess doesn't keep them from lyin', cheatin', stealin', an'
killin'. I reckon no man who lives as I do--which perhaps is my
religion--will lie or cheat or steal or kill, unless it's to kill in
self-defense or like I'd do if Snake Anson would ride up here now.
My religion, maybe, is love of life--wild life as it was in the
beginnin'--an' the wind that blows secrets from everywhere, an' the
water that sings all day an' night, an' the stars that shine constant,
an' the trees that speak somehow, an' the rocks that aren't dead. I'm
never alone here or on the trails. There's somethin' unseen, but always
with me. An' tha