Warm is a day in the upland; Warm is the valley, and bright; Glittering stars are shining Over the valley at night. Here in the western lowland Patiently I remain, Under the clouds, in darkness, Under the dismal rain. Patient I wait, well knowing The joy that is to be: Into the east you're going To build a home for me. Rather would I go with you, But, staying, I smile and sing, For winter is almost over, And soon will come the spring. Then to the home you have made me, Singing, still singing, I'll go Over the eastern mountains Into a valley I know. CHAPTER VII On Oregon Trails At Shaniko I denied being a land seeker. Yet such I actually was, although seeking Oregon, a land of plenty Where one dollar grows to twenty not because of the financial fruitfulness the verse implies, but rather because it was a land where outdoor pleasures are readily accessible. The logical outcome of land seeking is home making, and so in due course we became Oregonians; and now from our Oregon home we pilgrimage along the varied trails of the Pacific Playland, whose beginnings are but across our doormat, when fancy leads and the exchequer permits. All of us read with envy of the "big trips," the splendid outings to the ends of the earth, made by scientists and sportsmen, and those who are neither but possess the instincts, income, and the inclination. Simply because we cannot follow such examples is no reason to suppose they appeal to us less than to the fortunate adventurer _de luxe_ for whom African expeditioning, Labrador or Alaskan game trails, mountain scaling in Peru, or hunting along the Amazon are matters of every-year routine. Some day, we, too, hope for such mighty vacationing--when our ship comes in, or the baby gets big enough to be left behind, or the boss lengthens our vacation, as the case may be. But for the present there is a "when" or an "if" not to be ignored. So we content ourselves with lesser adventures in contentment, which after all, for solid pleasureable happiness, are perhaps the best. And we who live in the Pacific Playland find mountain, forest and river, fish and game, to our hearts' content; with a modicum of enterprise it is no trick at all to devise trips worth taking, whether viewed from the standpoint of woodsman, mountaineer, hunter, or fisher, and all within a hundred miles of home. Therein, indeed, lies the answer to this query, which a transplanted Easterner hears ever and anon: Why do you live in the West? For when it comes right down to the truly important things of life, like fly-fishing, mountaineering, and canoeing, the Pacific Coast is a region of unsurpassed satisfaction. Out-of-doors is always on tap, and when the hackneyed call of the red gods comes, it is easily answered.