Next to watching the other fellow prepare his camping kit and discuss plans for the Big Trip, when you yourself are to stay at home, I think the most exasperating experience is to hear the good tales told by the man fresh returned from some thrilling expedition. As you listen to the story of the big untrodden places, the routine of your everyday life seems woefully petty, and you are all at once distracted with a mad resolve to go and do likewise. It is a dangerous symptom, and should be prescribed for immediately--though the only real remedy I know is to close one's eyes and ears and flee from the place of temptation. For this is the Wanderlust, the joyful plague of the sinner who has lost all count of time and ties in following some wilderness trail, and desires nothing more than to lose them again. If McKinley and Alaska were out of reach, across Puget Sound lay a closer land of mountains and little-trodden trails. "Why not try Olympus?" The suggestion was no sooner made than accepted. Before I entered the room six months of stay-at-home was my unquestioned outlook, but all at once a hike to Olympus appeared the most reasonable thing in the world. Mine Host, upon whom the blame rests, was out of the running, for he started East the next day. But his companion, the Mountain Climber, although scarcely yet with a taste of civilization after months in the wilderness, was in a receptive frame of mind. It took us two minutes to decide definitely upon the excursion. Twenty minutes more and we had picked outfits from the wealth of paraphernalia all about us, and at midnight we saw the lights of Seattle's water front vanish astern as a Sound steamer bore us toward Port Angeles on the Olympic peninsula. At times on our journey the Mountain Climber reminded me that on his inland voyaging Stevenson traveled with a donkey. Inasmuch as our pack animal was a horse, that rather hurt my feelings; the inference was so obvious. However, that horse was more than half mule, so far as disposition is concerned. We hired him at Port Angeles and Billy was his name. "And when I walk, I always walk with Billy, For Billy knows just how to walk," chanted the Mountain Climber as we started out blithely. But long ere we crossed the divide separating the town from the valley of the Elwha River we realized that if Billy knew how to walk he emphatically refused to put his knowledge into practice. For Billy was a stubborn loafer until it came to night time, when he bent his pent-up energy to getting as far from camp as possible between dusk and sun-up. [Illustration: "Canoeing is the most satisfactory method of travel extant"] [Illustration: The pack train above timber line From a photo by Belmore Browne]