It was a time of halting, of transition for me. For six years—even while writing my story of Ulysses Grant I had been absorbing the mountain west in the growing desire to put it into fiction, and now with a burden of Klondike material to be disposed of, I was subconsciously at work upon a story of the plains and the Rocky Mountain foothills. In short, as a cattleman would say, I was "milling" in the midst of a wide landscape.
I should have gone on to New York at once, but with the alluring associations of Taft's studio, I lingered on through November and December, excusing myself by saying that I could work out my problem better in my own room on Elm Street than in a hotel in New York, and as a matter of fact I did succeed in writing several chapters of the Colorado novel which I called The Eagle's Heart.
At last, late in December, I bundled my manuscripts together and set out for the East. Perhaps this decision was hastened by some editorial suggestion—at any rate I arrived, for I find in my diary the record of a luncheon with Brander Matthews who said he liked my Grant book,—a verdict which heartened me wonderfully. I believed it to be a good book then, as I do now, but it was not selling as well as we had confidently expected it to do and my publishers had lost interest in it.
The reason for the failure of this book was simple. The war with Spain had thrust between the readers of my generation and the Civil War, new commanders, new slogans and new heroes. To this later younger public "General Grant" meant Frederick Grant, and all hats were off to Dewey, Wood and Roosevelt. "You are precisely two years late with your story of the Great Commander," I was told, and this I was free to acknowledge.
There is an old proverb which had several times exactly described my situation and which described it then. "It is always darkest just before dawn," proved to be true of this particular period of discouragement, for one day while at The Players, Brett, the head of Macmillans, came up to me and said, "Why don't you let me take over your Main Traveled Roads, Prairie Folks, and Rose of Dutcher's Coolly? I will do this provided you will write two new books for me, one to be called Boy Life on the Prairie and the other a Klondike book based on your experiences in the North."
This offer cleared my sky. It not only gave direction to my pen—it roused my hopes of having a home of my own, for Brett's offer involved the advance of several thousand dollars in royalty. I began to think of marriage in a more definite way. My case was not so hopeless after all. Perhaps Zulime Taft——
Taking a room on Twenty-fifth street I set to work with eager intensity to get these five books in shape for the Macmillan press, and in two weeks I had carefully revised Rose and was hard at work on the record of my story of the Northwest which I called The Trail of the Gold Seekers. I was done with "milling." I was headed straight for a home.
In calling upon Howells soon after my arrival I referred to our last meeting wherein I had lightly remarked (putting my finger on the map), "I shall go in here at Quesnelle and come out there, on the Stickeen," and said, "I am now able to report. I did it. In spite of all the chances for failure I carried out my program."
He asked about the dangers I had undergone, and I replied by saying, "A trailer meets his dangers and difficulties one by one. In the mass they are appalling but singly they are surmountable. We took each mile as it came."
"What do you intend to do with your experiences?" he asked.