Many will recall his thrilling adventure on the Muir glacier, told in his story entitled Stickeen , named for his companion, the missionary's dog. It is one of the finest studies of dogliness in all literature, and told in Muir's whimsical way, betrayed unconsciously the tenderness of his heart. He was hungry for sympathy and found it in the visitors whom he piloted about and above the Yosemite Valley - Emerson,Sir Joseph Hooker, Torrey, and many others of an older day or of late years, including presidents Roosevelt and Taft. Muir was clever at story-telling, and put into it both wit and sympathy, never failing to give, as a background, more delightful information about the mountains than a professor of geology would put into a chapter. This his conversation visualized until his imagination kindled the imagination of his hearer.
Adventures are to the adventurous.
Muir, never reckless, was fortunate in seeing nature in many a wonderful mood and aspect. And what unrecorded adventures he must have had as pioneer of peak and glacier in his study of the animal and vegetable life of the Sierra. What others learned laboriously, he seemed to reach by instinct, and yet he was painstaking in the extreme and jealous of the correctness of both his facts and his conclusions, defending them as a beast defends her young. But Muir's public services were not merely scientific and literary. His country men owe him gratitude as the pioneer of our system of national parks.