The scene comes brightly back again, the sheltering fir-clad shore, the staunch canoe skimming the river's tranquil reach, the water smiling round her bow, as we push from this, the last of full five hundred camps.
The dawn fog lifts, the river sparkles in the sun, we round the last of a thousand headlands. The little frontier town of the Landing swings into view once more—what a metropolis it seems to us now!—The Ann Seton lands at the spot where six months ago she had entered the water. Now in quick succession come the thrills of the larger life—the letters from home, the telegraph office, the hearty good-bye to the brave riverboys, and my long canoe-ride is over.
I had held in my heart the wanderlust till it swept me away, and sent me afar on the back trail of the north wind; I have lived in the mighty boreal forest, with its Red-men, its Buffalo, its Moose, and its Wolves; I have seen the Great Lone Land with its endless plains and prairies that do not know the face of man or the crack of a rifle; I have been with its countless lakes that re-echo nothing but the wail and yodel of the Loons, or the mournful music of the Arctic Wolf. I have wandered on the plains of the Musk-ox, the home of the Snowbird and the Caribou. These were the things I had burned to do. Was I content? Content!! Is a man ever content with a single sip of joy long-dreamed of?
Four years have gone since then. The wanderlust was not stifled any more than a fire is stifled by giving it air. I have taken into my heart a longing, given shape to an ancient instinct. Have I not found for myself a kingdom and become a part of it? My reason and my heart say, "Go back to see it all." Grant only this, that I gather again the same brave men that manned my frail canoe, and as sure as life and strength continue I shall go.