This, then, was my way out: I had lost my eyesight in the deep woods, with a gun in my hand, in the very hour of despoiling nature; I would turn about and tell the American boys and girls all these intensely interesting things that I had discovered in conjunction with other nature students. But I would go further than that. I would show them the life of field and forest from the side of the hunted. I would try to get the attitude of all my little furred and feathered friends, and put it into books. I would teach children not only to know and love the birds and squirrels, but also to care for them and to help them in their unequal struggle in the desperate battle for existence that they daily wage.

It would surprise one of the uninitiated to know how much I can observe of the out-of-doors, either in field or forest or on lakes and streams, wholly by myself, without the aid of eyes. My hearing for the slight sounds of nature is so keen, and my senses are so quick to detect new clues either by sound or scent, that I am just as apt to discover the new and wonderful things as are my seeing friends who accompany me. In the spring I hear more wild geese go over than does anyone else in the vicinity, because my ears are unconsciously keyed to catch their stirring water slogan. To the trained ear every rustle and every snapping twig in the forest means something, and all these slight sounds tell their own story.

My nature books give me joy above everything else. Into them has gone the best there is in me. So is it any wonder that I love them as my own flesh and blood?

CLARENCE HAWKES

(From Hitting the Dark Trail, Henry Holt and Company)

THE LONE TRAIL

Ye who know the Lone Trail fain would follow it,
Though it lead to glory or the darkness of the pit,
Ye who take the Lone Trail, bid your love good-bye;
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow till you die.

The trails of the world be countless, and most of the trails be tried;

You tread on the heels of the many, till you come where the ways divide;

And one lies safe in the sunlight, and the other is dreary

and wan,

Yet you look aslant at the Lone Trail, and the Lone Trail lures you on.

And somehow you 're sick of the highway, with its noise and its easy needs,

And you seek the risk of the byway, and you reck not where it leads.

And sometimes it leads to the desert, and the tongue swells out of the mouth,

And you stagger blind to the mirage, to die in the mocking

drouth.

And sometimes it leads to the mountain, to the light of the lone camp-fire,

And you gnaw your belt in the anguish of hunger-goaded desire.

And sometimes it leads to the Southland, to the swamp where the orchid glows,

And you rave to your grave with the fever, and they rob the corpse for its clothes.

And sometimes it leads to the Northland, and the scurvy softens your bones,

And

your flesh dints in like putty, and you spit out your teeth like stones.

And sometimes it leads to a coral reef in the wash of a weedy sea,

And you sit and stare at the empty glare where the gulls wait greedily.

And sometimes it leads to an Arctic trail, and the snows where your torn feet freeze,

And you whittle away the useless clay, and crawl on your hands and knees.

Often it leads to the dead-pit; always it leads to pain; By the bones of your brothers ye know it, but oh, to follow you 're fain.

By your bones they will follow behind you, till the ways of the world are made plain.

Bid good-bye to sweetheart, bid good-bye to friend;
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow to the end.
Tarry not and fear not, chosen of the true;

Lover of the Lone Trail, the Lone Trail waits for you.

ROBERT W. SERVICE

BEETHOVEN

HE cursed the day that he was born,

And deaf and desolate,
Resolved, in bitterness forlorn,

To end his hapless fate.

But as the deeper silence grew,
An exile from the throng,
His yearning spirit voices drew
From inner founts of song;

And he who called unfriendly Death
To calm rebellious strife,

Won from his own despair the breath

Of an immortal life.

FLORENCE EARLE COATES

A BATTLE IN THE SICK-ROOM

FOR fourteen years I have not had a day's real health; I have wakened sick and gone to bed weary; and I have done my work unflinchingly. I have written in bed, and written out of it, written in hemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn by coughing, written when my head swam for weakness; and for so long, it seems to me I have won my wager and recovered my glove. I am better now

have been, rightly speaking, since first I came to the Pacific; and still, few are the days when I am not in some physical distress. And how the battle goes on - ill or well, is a trifle; so as it goes. I was made for a contest, and the Powers have so willed that my battlefield should be this dingy, inglorious one of the bed and the physic bottle. At least I have not failed, but I would have preferred a place of trumpetings, and the open air over my head. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

(From The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Scribner's Sons)

THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE

I AM out for the Land of Heart's Desire
With glad eyes lit in a holy quest,

With young blood stung by a raptured fire,
And a soul grown big with a dream, the best
A dream where a heart's desire may rest.

Would you go to the Land of Heart's Desire?
You must tread far out on a rock-strewn way,
And your hopes shall sink and your footsteps tire
In your westward walk; and your pathway gray
Shall grow no blooms to make glad the day.

But you'll know, as you travel to Heart's Desire,
That the thorns which are stinging your aching feet
You are trampling down in the treacherous mire,
And clearing the path to make progress sweet
For those in the rear who will follow fleet.

Have you courage to travel to Heart's Desire?
The way is long and the risks are great,
And your soul must battle with dangers dire-
Contempt, derision, and hellish hate,
Like fiends in your path shall lie in wait.

But the dream you 've had of Heart's Desire
Shall burst in song from your joyous breast
And mount on wings than the eagle higher,
Till men shall turn to the glowing west
And the world shall rise and proclaim you blest.

Hard, hard is the battle for Heart's Desire,

The days are so short and the nights fall deep;
But our souls grow strong and our hopes soar higher,
And we have no time to mourn or weep -
God grant we may win ere we sink to sleep.

Shall come in the last long sobbing breath,

For you 've fought the fight and you 've borne the fire,

And the end you reach is never Death

It is Life! It is Life! for you 've kept the faith.

JAMES C. WELSH