In this account of my hesitations I am _still_ the historian. In stating my case I am stating the perplexities of thousands of my fellow citizens of the Middle Border. It has its humorous phases--this reversal of social habit in me, but it also has wide significance. My surrender was coincident with similar changes of thought in millions of other young men throughout the West. It was but another indication that the customs of the Border were fading to a memory, and that Western society, which had long been dominated by the stately figures of the minister and the judge, was on its way to adopt the manners and customs of the openly-derided but secretly admired "four hundred." Having decided on my sailing date I asked Howells for a few letters of introduction to English authors. He surprised me by saying, "I have very few acquaintances in England but I will do what I can for you." At the moment of embarkation I disappointed myself by remaining quite calm. Even when the great ship began to heave and snort and slide away from the wharf I experienced no thrill--it was not till an hour or two later, as I stood on the forward deck, watching the sun go down over the tumbling spread of water, which had something of the majesty I had known in the prairies, that I became exalted. The vast expanse seemed strangely like an appalling desert and lifting my eyes to the cloudy horizon line I could almost imagine myself back on the rocks of Walpi overlooking the Navajo reservation. In a letter to my mother I gave the story of my trip. "Feeling a bit queer along about nine o'clock I went to my state room.--When I came on deck the next time, my eyes rested upon the green hills of Ireland!--I am certain the ship's restaurant realized the highest possible profit in my case for I remember but two meals, one as we were leaving Sandy Hook, the other as we signaled Queenstown. It may be that I imbibed a bowl of soup in the interim,--I certainly swallowed a great many doses of several kinds of medicine. The ship's doctor declared me to be the worst sailor he had even known in all his thirty years' experience,--so much of distinction I may definitely claim." In the dark hours of that interminable week, I went over my trail into the Skeena Valley during the previous May, with retrospective delight. In contrast to these endless days of lonely misery in my ship bed those weeks of rain and mud and mosquitoes became a joyous outing. So far from giving any thought to problems of dress or social intercourse I was only interested in reaching land--any land. "In two minutes after I landed at Liverpool I was perfectly well," I wrote to my mother. "The touch of solid earth under my feet instantly restored my sanity. My desire to live returned. In an hour I was aboard one of the quaint little coaches of the Midland Express and on my way to London.