Vachel soon began to feel much better, though he looked quaint, hobbling along the rocks and uneven woodland holding on to a tall pine-cudgel which he had cut. He wore a red cotton handkerchief over his crumpled hat, and it was tied in knots under his chin. He was weak at all joints and walked like a dwarf who lives in a hollow tree, a fairy-like antediluvian old fellow. His red wind-blown face was lined and lined. His eyes twinkled as he walked. He stooped to pick up wood, he looked cautiously about him, and I had the feeling that he would rapidly scurry away if a human being came into view. I returned to camp for a bagful of provisions, and bright-faced Myrtle La Barge gave me a whole apple-pie to take to the poet in memory of Johnny Appleseed, and she gave me large overweight of cheese and apricots and ham and all the rest I asked for. That night a bear came after us, smelling the ham, and I said to him, “Bite Daniel, bite him, bite him!” and the bear studied us some paltry half-hour, but as the Comick saith, “his mind was in the kitchen.” And he said to the poet with a disappointed groan--“How about the ham?” But Vachel then waved his pine-cudgel and the bear did waver with his hind-quarters and ran away. The poet then became a silent watcher for the rest of the night. We set off next day for the Kootenai River, and Vachel had tied up his game foot in a dozen ropes and bindings, and it was soaking in iodine besides, and we went very slowly and he sang hymns all the way. I said to him, “You won’t mind, Vachel, if I go ahead some distance.” For his singing scared the wild animals. The white-vested woodpecker walking like a great fly up the dead poles of old pines, tapping as he went, paused meditatively at the sound of Vachel’s voice; the grouse and the ptarmigan tripped ahead of us like hens, and scurried out of view; little piggy the porcupine trembled in all his beautiful quills; and the squirrels scolded from all the trees as if we were a terrible annoyance. I am not surprised. At school at Springfield the teacher used to say; “All sing except Vachel,” the reason being that he has his own voice entirely. Thus, in slow and devastating accents, keeping pace with the enforced slow walk and pine-cudgel progress, you might have heard him singing-- We ... shall ... dwell ... in that fair and happy ... land Just across ... from the ever-green sho-o-re. and I put distance between us, but ever as he caught up I could hear the scared animals rushing away. I grew facetious about the ever-green shore, after he had sung it fifty-five times, and he, with utter meekness, gave it up from that hour forth and sang instead: When he cometh, when he cometh, To make up his jewels. * * * * *