ives
tongue in pursuit of _ah-pe-shee moos-oos_, the jumping deer; the
howling infamy of the huskies seeking their meat from God; the raucous
roar of the hulking moose blind with rage of love.

Listen! I made an error to speak of an all-whiteness, for, where the
Aurora pins her colours to the sky, it is like unto an angry opal.
This is Beauty Absolute. Her swinging swords of flame none have
measured: who shall tell the measure of this land?

But listen! It is not beyond our understanding that men should feel
the urge of this Northland and its strange enticement. Some there are
who speak of it as the lure of the North; the fret of spring, or the
call of red gods. Surely we may understand aright if we do but watch
the birds flock hither of spring-time, and how the fish fight up
against the streams though it be to suffer and to die. These cannot
resist the drag of the magnetic pole, any more than you and I who have
souls and are feeling folk!

But it is not always frigid here, for we have springtide and the season
of seven sweet suns. "Good morrow!" shouts the tired Winter in the
time of melting snows. "Good morrow!" shouts back the nimble Spring as
he throws a mist of green over the young aspens. "Come fly with me and
touch the sun," pleads the eagle to his sweetheart. "Come with me and
be my love," woos Kiya, boatman of the Athabasca; "already the young
birds are in their nests and soon they will fly away. Soon will the
time of mating be past."

Aye! but the summer winds are honey-mouthed.

Aye! but the skies are star-enchanted, and there are fair stories I
might tell about yellow grain fields and of red lilies like blown
flame, but none save those who are prairie rangers would understand
aright.

Besides, there are woolly-mouthed men and chattering daws who say
secretly that we of the North are boasters, and that we tell ill tales.

But though we are impeached, yet will we say that our song is tinged
with no lie. We are young men, and sowers of grain, and it is pleasant
to glorify the largess of our harvest.

We are boasters, they tell, and full-mouthed, but why should we keep
hidden and unshared the all-golden treasures of our fields? We will
not hide this thing in our hearts, but, with fair speech, will sing it
in a million-voiced canticle of praise. There is no need that we sing
restrainedly of our goodly dower, or in measured words, for we are no
servile race of hirelings, but free men and pr