of his revery.

Beyond the black velvet band lay the wilderness. There was the trackless
country, large as the United States itself, with its great forests, its
unmapped bodies of water, its plains, its barren grounds, its mountains,
its water courses wider even than the Hudson River. Moose and bear, true
lords of the forest, he might see any summer day. Herds of caribou,
sometimes thousands strong, roamed its woodlands and barrens. Wolves,
lurking or bold as their prey was strong or weak, clung to the caribou
bands in hope of a victim. Wolverines,--unchanged in form from another
geological period--marten, mink, fisher, otter, ermine, muskrat, lynx,
foxes, beaver carried on their varied affairs of murder or of peaceful
industry. Woods Indians, scarcely less keen of sense or natural of life
than the animals, dwelt in their wigwams of bark or skins, trapped and
fished, made their long migrations as the geese turn following their
instinct. Sun, shadow, rain, cold, snow, hunger, plenty, labour, or the
peaceful gliding of rivers, these had watched by the Long Trail in the
years Sam Bolton had followed it. He sensed them now dimly,
instinctively, waiting by the Trail he was called upon to follow.

Sam Bolton had lived many years in the forest, and many years alone.
Therefore he had imagination. It might be of a limited quality, but
through it he saw things in their essences.

Now from the safe vantage ground of the camp, from the breathing space
before the struggle, he looked out upon the wilderness, and in the
wilderness he felt the old, inimical Presence as he had felt it for
forty years. The scars of that long combat throbbed through his
consciousness. The twisting of his strong hands, the loosening of the
elasticity, the humbling of the spirit, the caution that had displaced
the carelessness of youth, the keenness of eye, the patience,--all these
were at once the marks of blows and the spoils of victory received from
the Enemy. The wilderness, calm, ruthless, just, terrible, waited in the
shadow of the forest, seeking no combat, avoiding none, conquering with
a lofty air of predestination, yielding superbly as though the moment's
victory for which a man had strained the fibres of his soul were, after
all, a little, unimportant thing; never weary, never exultant,
dispassionate, inevitable, mighty, whose emotions were silence, whose
speech was silence, whose most terrible weapon was the great white
silence that smothered