the steamboat and its splendid
company, get a dugout canoe and a crew of Indians, and, with you as my
companion, poke into the nooks and crannies of the mountains and
glaciers which we could not reach from the steamer. What great days we
have had together, you and I!"

This day at Skagway, in 1899, was the last of my Alaska days with John
Muir, except as I bring them back and live them over in my thoughts. How
often in my long voyages, by canoe or steamer, among the thousand
islands of southeastern Alaska, the intricate channels of Prince
William's Sound, the great rivers, and multitudinous lakes of the
Interior, and the treeless, windswept coasts of Bering Sea and the
Arctic Ocean; or in my tramps in the summer over the mountains and
plains of Alaska, or in the winter with my dogs over the frozen
wilderness fighting the great battle with the fierce cold or spellbound
under the magic of the Aurora--how often have I longed for the presence
of Muir to heighten my enjoyment by his higher ecstasy, or reveal to me
what I was too dull to see or understand. I have had inspiring
companions, and my life has been blessed by many friendships inestimably
precious and rich; but for me the World has produced but one John Muir;
and to no other man do I feel that I owe so much; for I was blind and
he made me see!

Only once since 1899 did I meet him, and then but for an hour at his
temporary home in Los Angeles in 1910. He was putting the finishing
touches on his rich volume, "The Story of My Boyhood and Youth." I
submitted for his review and correction the article which forms the
first two chapters of this book. With that nice regard for absolute
verity which always characterized him he pointed out two or three
passages in which his recollection clashed with mine, and I at once made
the changes he suggested.

Muir never grew old. After he was sixty years of age (as men count age)
some of his most daring feats of mountain climbing and some of his
longest journeys into the wilds were undertaken. When he was past
seventy he was still tramping and camping in the forests and among the
hills. When he was seventy-three he made long trips to South America and
Africa, and to the very end he was exploring, studying, working and
enjoying.

All his writings exult with the spirit of immortal youth. There is in
his books an intimate companionship with the trees, the mountains, the
flowers and the animals, that is altogether fine. Surely no suc