Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/194

 all our wanderings, teaching us, I humbly hope, the inevitable lesson, permanent and precious in proportion to the pain with which the poor scholar gets his task by heart.

Well—I give you my word, the endless stems, the noiseless solitude, the circumscribed horizon, reminded me of those forest ranges in North America that stretch interminable from the waters of the St. Ann's and the Batsicon, to the wild waves breaking dark and sullen on the desert seaboard of Labrador. I am not joking. I declare to you I was once more in mocassins [sic], blanket-coat and bonnet-rouge, with an axe in my belt, a pack on my shoulders, and a rifle in my hand, following the track of the treborgons on snow-shoes, in company with Thomas, the