Early in March, I notified Babcock to meet me at Ashcroft in British Columbia on April 15th. "We'll outfit there, and go in by way of Quesnelle," I added, and with a mind filled with visions of splendid streams, grassy valleys and glorious camps among eagle-haunted peaks, I finished the final pages of my proof and started West, boyishly eager to set forth upon the mighty circuit of my projected exploration. "This is the end of my historical writing," I notified McClure. "I'm going back to my fiction of the Middle Border." On a radiant April morning I reached the homestead finding mother fairly well, but greatly disturbed over my plan. "I don't like to have you go exploring," she said. "It's dangerous. Why do you do it?" Her voice, the look of her face, took away the spirit of my adventure. I felt like giving it up, but with all arrangements definitely made I could do nothing but go on. The weather was clear and warm, with an odorous south wind drawing forth the leaves, and as I fell to work, raking up the yard, the smell of unfolding blooms, the call of exultant "high-holders" and the chirp of cheerful robins brought back with a rush, all the sweet, associated memories of other springs and other gardens, making my gold-seeking expedition seem not only chimerical, but traitorous to my duties. The hens were singing their cheerful, changeless song below the stable wall; calves were bawling from the neighboring farm-yards and on the mellow soil the shining, broadcast seeders were clattering to their work, while over the greening hills a faint mist wavered, delicate as a bride's veil. Was it not a kind of madness to exchange the security, the peace, the comfort of this homestead, for the hardships of a trail whose circuit could not be less than ten thousand miles, a journey which offered possible injury and certain deprivation? The thought which gave me most uneasiness was not my danger but the knowledge that in leaving my mother to silently brood over the perils which she naturally exaggerated, I was recreant to my pledge. Expression was always elliptical with her; and I shall never know how keenly she suffered during those days of preparation. Instead of acquiring a new daughter, she seemed on the point of losing a son.