“These cabins are all deserted now; the tide of prospecting has turned another way. The great hills that crowd one another up against the sky are so infested and overridden by this enormous forest-growth, and the underbrush is so dense, it would be impossible for a 'tenderfoot' to gain any clear idea of his direction. I should be a lost man the moment I ventured out of call. Woodcraft must be a sixth sense which we lost with the rest of our Eden birthright when we strayed from innocence, when we ceased to sleep with one ear on the ground, and to spell our way by the moss on tree-trunks. In these solitudes, as we call them, ranks and clouds of witnesses rise up to prove us deaf and blind. Busy couriers are passing every moment of the day; and we do not see, nor hear, nor understand. We are the stocks and stones. Packer John is our only wood-sharp;--yet the last half of the name doesn't altogether fit him. He is a one-sided character, handicapped, I should say, by some experience that has humbled and perplexed him. Two and two perhaps refused to make four in his account with men, and he gave up the proposition. And now he consorts with trees, and hunts to live, not to kill. He has an impersonal, out-door odor about him, such as the cleanest animals have. I would as soon eat out of his dry, hard, cool hand, as from a chunk of pine-bark. “It is amusing to see him with a certain member of the party who tries to be fresh with him. He has a disconcerting eye when he fixes it on a man, or turns it away from one who has said a coarse or a foolish thing. “'The jungle is large,' he seems to say, 'and the cub he is small. Let him think and be still!'” “Who is this 'certain member' who tries to be 'fresh'?” Christine inquired with perceptible warmth. “The cook, perhaps,” said Moya prudently. “The cook isn't a 'member'!--Well, can't you go on, Moya? Paul seems to need a lot of editing.” Moya had paused and was glancing ahead, smiling to herself constrainedly. “Is there more disparagement of his comrades?” Christine persisted. “Christine, be still!” Mrs. Bogardus interfered. “Moya ought to have the first reading of her own letter. It's very good of her to let us hear it at all.” “Oh dear, there's no disparagement. Quite the contrary! I'll go on with pleasure if you don't mind.” Moya read hurriedly, laughing through her words:-- “'If you were here, (Ah, _if_ you were here!) You should lend me an ear--One at the least Of a pair the prettiest'--which is, within a foot or two, the rhythm of 'Wood Notes.' Of course you don't know it!” “This is a gibe at me,” Moya explained, “because I don't read Emerson. 'It is the very measure of a marching chorus,' he goes on to say, 'where the step is broken by rocks and tree-roots;'--and he is chanting it to himself (to her it was in the original) as they go in single file through these 'haughty solitudes, the twilight of the gods!'” “'Haughty solitudes'!” Christine derided.