“And so it was for him,” the aged prospector added, after looking away at the stars. “There are men like that, thousands of them. Go into some great steel mill where is constant din and confusion. Look far up to a narrow cage. A man stands manipulating levers. Climb up there and ask him: ‘Where is your place of peace?’
“If he knows the answer it will be: ‘Here.’
“You’ll find the same thing in a great city, Johnny. Go into some department store where the rush is greatest; in the wheat pit where men are shouting loudest; it’s all the same. You’ll find men there who’ll say: ‘This is the place of peace.’
“But for me—” His tone dropped once more. “As for me, this is the place of peace. Do you know that at the back of the cabin only a few low trees grow?”
Johnny nodded.
“It’s no clearing. No axe has been put to any tree. When God and the birds planted these low forests they left this place for me.
“Spring and summer,” he mused, “they are marvelous here. The wild ducks come to lay their eggs and rear their young. There’s an egg or two extra for me. There are ptarmigan in the low hills and fish aplenty. A light rifle and a gill-net, that’s all you need for living well.
“At night you hear the bull moose calling to his mate. One stormy day you see the caribou passing by your cabin, a line many miles long, straking away toward the north.
“When the notion seizes you, you drop into your canoe and paddle away. You enter a broad bay and you say to yourself, ‘There must be a prosperous village deep in the heart of this bay. There the saw mills are humming and the merchants are measuring out goods over the counter. There I will find a bed and a meal such as only good Molly McGregor can provide.’
“But you are deceiving yourself. There is no village, no saw mill, no store, no bed save that of spruce boughs, and no meal save that which nature will provide.