Perhaps that is what an outing is for—to strip one down to the lean essentials, press in upon one the glorious privilege of being one's self, unique in all the universe of innumerable unique things. Crouched close to your wilderness campfire, the great Vision comes easily out of the smoke. Once again you feel the bigness of your world, the tremendous significance of everything in it—including yourself—and a far-seeing sadness grips you. Living in the flesh seems so transient, almost a pitiful thing in the last analysis. But somehow you feel that there is something bigger—not beyond it, but all about it continually. And you wonder that you ever hated anyone. You know, somehow, there in the smoky silence, why men are noble or ignoble; why they lie or die for a principle; why they kill, or suffer martyrdom; why they love and hate and fight; why women smile under burdens, sin splendidly or sordidly—and why hearts sometimes break.
And expanded by the bigness of the empty silent spaces about you, like a spirit independent of it and outside of it all, you love the great red straining Heart of Man more than you could ever love it at your desk in town. And you want to get up and move—push on through purple distances—whither? Oh, anywhere will do! What you seek is at the end of the rainbow; it is in the azure of distance; it is just behind the glow of the sunset, and close under the dawn. And the glorious thing about it is that you know you'll never find it until you reach that lone, ghostly land where the North Star sets, perhaps. You're merely glad to know that you're not a vegetable—and that the trail never really ends anywhere.
Just now, however, the longing for the abstract had the semblance of a longing for the concrete. It always has that semblance, for that matter. You never really want what you think you are seeking. Touch the substance—and away you go after the shadow!
Around the bend lay Sioux City. Around what bend? What matter? Somewhere down stream the last bend lay, and in between lay the playing of the game. Any bend will do to sail around! There's a lot of fun in merely being able to move about and do things. For this reason I am overwhelmed with gratitude whenever I think that, through some slight error in the cosmic process, the life forces that glow in me might have been flung into a turnip—but weren't! The thought is truly appalling—isn't it? The avoidance of that one awful possibility is enough to make any man feel lucky all his life. It's such fun to awaken in the morning with all your legs and arms and eyes and ears about you, waiting to be used again! So strong was this thought in me when we cast off, that even the memory of Bill's amateurish pancakes couldn't keep back the whistle.
The current of the Black Bluffs Rapids whisked us from the bank with a giddy speed, spun us about a right-angled bend, and landed us in a long quiet lake. Contrary to the average opinion, the Upper Missouri is merely a succession of lakes and rapids. In the low-water season, this statement should be italicised. When you are pushing down with the power of your arms alone the rapids show you how fast you want to go, and the lakes show you that you can't go that fast. For the teaching of patience, the arrangement is admirable. But when head winds blow, a three-mile reach means about a two-hour fight.
This being a very invigorating morning, however, the engine decided to take a constitutional. It ran. Below the mouth of the Marias River, twenty minutes later, we grounded on Archer's Bar and shut down. After dragging her off the gravel, we discovered that the engine wished to sleep. No amount of cranking could arouse it. Now and then it would say "squash," feebly rolling its wheel a revolution or two—like a sleepy-head brushing off a fly with a languid hand.