Strange malady! He who had never met his match in stark strength could not now by the exercise of all his will, lift that limp arm from his side and as I sat beside him I recalled my last sad meeting with Major Powell, the man who first guided a canoe through the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, and in my mind arose a conception of what these two men, each in his kind represented in the story of American pioneering. One the far-famed explorer, the other the unknown rifleman behind the plow. With William McClintock—with my father, with Major Powell, a whole world, a splendid and heroic world was passing never to return, and when I took my uncle's hand in parting I was almost certain that I should never see him again.

Once he was king of forest men.
To him a snow-capped mountain range
Was but a line, a place of mark,
A view-point on the trail. Then
He had no dread of dark,
No fear of change.
Now an uprolled rug upon the floor
Appalls his feet. His withered arm
Shakes at the menace of a door,
And every wind-waft does him harm.
God! 'Tis a piteous thing to see
This ranger of the hills confined
To the small compass of his room
Like a chained eagle on a tree,
Lax-winged and gray and blind.
Only in dreams he sees the bloom
On far hills where the red deer run.
Only in memory guides the light canoe
Or stalks the bear with dog and polished gun.
In him behold the story of the West,
The chronicle of rifleman behind the plow,
Typing the life of those who knew
No barrier but the sunset in their quest.
On his bent head and grizzled hair
Is set the crown of those who shew
New cunning to the wolf, new courage to the bear.

Another evidence of melancholy change came to me in the failing powers of Ladrone, my mountain horse, who had come through the winter very badly. I found him standing in the pasture, weak and inactive, taking no interest in the rich grasses under his feet. In the belief that exercise would do him good, I saddled him and started to ride about the square, but soon drew rein. He had not the strength to carry me!

Sadly dismounting I led him back to the stable. It was evident that he would never again career with me across the hills. Bowed and dejected he resumed his place in the paddock. Standing thus, with hanging head, he appeared to be dreaming of the days when as a part of the round-up, in the far Northwest, he had carried his master over the range and through the herd with joyous zeal. Each time I looked at him I felt a twinge of pain.

Everything I could do for him was done, every remedial measure was tried, but he grew steadily worse, and at last, I called a neighbor to my aid and said, "Oliver, my horse is very sick. I fear his days are numbered. Study him, do what you can for him, and if you find he cannot be cured, put him away. Don't tell me when it is done or how it is done—I don't want to know. You understand?"

He understood, and one morning, a few days later, as I looked in the pasture for the gray pony, he was nowhere to be seen. In the dust of the driveway, I detected the marks of his small feet. The toes of his shoes pointed toward the gate, and there were no returning foot-prints. He had gone away on the long trail which leads to the River of Darkness and The Wide Lands Beyond It.

His bridle and saddle were hanging in the barn (they are still there), silent memorials of the explorations in which he and I had played a resolute part.

Something grips me by the throat as I remember his eyes,

"Brown, clear and calm, with color down deep,
Where his brave, proud soul seemed to lie."

I recall the first days we spent together, beautiful days in the Frazer Valley, when jubilant cranes bugled from the skies, and humming birds moved in myriads along the river's banks—memories of those desperate days in the Skeena forests, amid dank and poisonous plants—of marches on the tundra along the high Stickeen Divide—all these come back. I see him crowding close to my fire, thin and weak.