Page:Alaska days with John Muir.djvu/231

Rh longer among the Indians I would lose all power to talk or write good English, drove me from the Northwest to find a temporary home in Southern California. I had not notified Muir of my coming, but suddenly appeared in his orchard at Martinez one day in early summer. It was cherry-picking time and he was out among his trees superintending a large force of workmen. He saw me as soon as I discovered him, and dropping the basket he was carrying came running to greet me with both hands outstretched.

"Ah! my friend," he cried, "I have been longing mightily for you. You have come to take me on a canoe trip to the countries beyond—to Lituya and Yakutat bays and Prince William Sound; have you not? My weariness of this humdrum, work-a-day life has grown so,