get over the feeling that there's _something behind me_. If you go towards
the trees, they come to meet you; if you go backwards, they go back; but
you can't sit down and sit still without they'll come a-creeping up and
creeping up, and crowding in'--

"He stirred his 'dope' awhile, and then he struck another note. 'I've
wintered alone in these mountains,' he said, 'and I've seen snowslides
pounce out of a clear sky--a puff and a flash and a roar; an' trees four
foot across snappin' like kindlin' wood--not because it hit 'em; only the
breath of it struck them; and maybe a man lying dead somewheres under his
cabin timbers. That's no mother's love-tap. Pillows and flowers ain't in
it. But it's good poetry,' he added condescendingly.

"I have not quoted him right, not being much of a snap-shot at dialect;
and his is an undefined, unclassifiable mixture. Eastern farm-hand and
Western ranchman, prospector, who knows what? His real language is in his
eye and his rare, pure smile. And just as his countenance expresses his
thoughts without circumlocution or attempt at effect, so his body informs
his clothing. Wind and rain have moulded his hat to his head, his shoes
grip the ground like paws; his buckskins have a surface like a cast after
Rodin. They are repousseed by the hard bones and sinews underneath. I can
think of nothing but the clothing of Millet's peasants to compare with
this exterior of John's. He is himself a peasant of the woods. He has not
the predatory instincts. If he could have his way, not a shot would be
fired by any of us for the mere idle sport of killing. Shooting these
innocent, fearless creatures, who have not learned that we are here for
their destruction, is too like murder and treachery combined. Hunger
should be our only excuse. My forbearance, or weakness, is a sort of
unspoken bond between us. But I am a peasant, too, you know. I do not come
of the lordly, arms-bearing blood. I shoot at a live mark always under