It should be easy to forget. One had only to ascend another thousand feet, and all those objects would disappear from sight, or one could turn away, plunge into the forest, and they would be gone. Thus one could at will obliterate the past, annihilate the world. True, but that would only bring them back again; for to the inward vision they would be as large as ever, prominent, imposing, dominant. When the former life was out of sight it was by no means out of mind. When the eyes were closed, the absent ones, friends and enemies, would return and take their accustomed places. To banish them would be to commit a species of suicide, a mutilation of the soul, like cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye. No, he who would have the fulness of life must forget nothing; and he who would be brave must not only face the future with courage, but look with steadfast eye upon the past. Thus Jean Baptiste, as he stood on the mountain-top, in view of his old home, allowed his former self to overtake him, and together they went on their way. Jean made his way over the crest of the mountain, and down the northern slope, into a densely wooded valley, pushing through the thick fringe of alders that bordered the stream, floundering in a maze of swamps and beaver ponds, stepping lightly over carpets of thick, yielding moss in the shade of cedars and tamaracks, climbing up again among the beeches and maples of the middle slopes, the pines and spruces of the higher ridges, until he stood on the summit of a second range that overtopped all the southern hills. Looking back he saw beneath him a sea of hills and valleys, with the edge of a clearing showing here and there; while far away and beyond were the flats of Beauport, the great river, and the spires and roofs of Quebec shining in the morning sun. The gleaming light seemed to beckon, to call him back to a life and work that should lead in the end to the city, the centre of civilisation, the lure and reward of all worthy effort; but the spirit of the woods was strong within him, and he turned his back upon the achievements of industry and commerce, and all the idols of the market-place, and set his face once more toward the wilderness. For many hours Jean marched along through the woods, steadily going northward toward the height of land that divides the waters flowing into the St. Lawrence from those that go into Lake St. John and the Saguenay; until at sunset he stood upon a low ridge and saw at his feet, in a hollow between the hills, the lake toward which he had been moving all the day. He smiled in satisfaction at the feat which he had accomplished; for he had taken a course across five ranges of mountains, and kept his direction with such precision that he came out of the forest within a hundred yards of the cabin that was to be his home.