I drifted east and found myself in Boston. There I met two young men, seniors in college, but poor, who had engaged themselves as men of all work--partly as a midsummer lark, but chiefly for the money to be gained--to work in a great summer hotel in the mountains. A third man was needed, and they asked me if I would not go with them. I was ready for anything, and accepted the invitation. The hotel was one of the largest in the mountains, and the numerous guests included wealthy and distinguished families from all parts of the country. That we were college-bred men and had students' ambitions also became known, and it came to pass, at last, that our duties for the day accomplished, we appeared in evening dress, and joined in the evening's amusements, laughed at in a friendly way, and jesting ourselves in return. I cannot go into further details of the happenings of that summer at the mountain resort, where all was healthy and healthful except my own mentality, which had been made what it was by conditions over which I had no control. I prayed, and prayer, while it strengthened me, did not help me bow to the injustice under which I suffered. I thought and tried to find what a logical brain, a broad view of things, and a keen intelligence might do, and that did not help me. Ever, ever came the same inevitable deduction. I was a hunted wretch, pursued by a social and partly natural law, driven ever into a cul de sac, into a side gorge in the mountains of life, a short gorge with precipitous walls on either side and ending suddenly and briefly in a wall as perpendicular and high and smooth. True, I had for the moment escaped, for the instant I was free, but I knew that soon, inevitably, the cordon would hem me in and that I would be at the mercy of the pursuers--the unmalicious but instinctively impelled pursuers. Then came a respite from the torturing thought, a forgetfulness for the moment, a forgetfulness to be paid for. I was the man with the boats and, as well the guide who conducted individuals or parties to and from all the picturesque or curious spots of the wild region round about the summer resort which shrewd capitalists had implanted in the heart of nature. So it came that I met all, or nearly all the guests, groups who had chaffed at me, and yet, knowing my status, made me one of them. Strong young men and good ones made me a comrade, fathers and mothers of broods of little children leaned on me, and at last and worse in the end, the occasional woman who thought for herself, knew nature for herself and wanted but to go out alone to meet her sister, that same Nature, became my companion. There was one among those who, to me, was above the other women. There was one among those--may the good God ever have her in his keeping--who, from no thought or fault of hers, has given me the greatest vision of happiness and also such sorrow as few men know.