The toiler. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1919-1922, 1920-04-30
Chapt. XVIII.
The Home of the Spirit,


Jack cashed his check and paid his
bill at the boarding house after which
he left the mining town of Mullen and
made his way in the direction of Couer
| D. Alane Lake, where he knew that
Collins and Rudolph awaited him. The
distance before him was about sixty
five miles down the river and he de-
cided to walk it and study the country
at first hand. It was in reality new
world to him. 1t was the books made
real.
The trail over which he travelled
ran along the mountain side; IL was
not a road; wheeled vehicles could not
mass over it. 1t was short cut through
the mountains, used by the prospect
ors to get to their claims. These men
hauled their provisions to their little
mines real or imaginary, on their
backs or on the backs of horses, mules
or burros. This mode of transportation
needed but a narrow trail and such 1T
was. It went up and down and in ana
cut among the rocks and ledges, down
thru wooded ravines and up over bar
rem ridges and at this time OF the
wear alternately thru banks of snow
and dark evergreen forests. 1t was
region Of the profoundest silence,
hardly the chirp of bird broke the
Istillness. The boy had feeling that
he walked in an unmeasured I'M.
mensity filled with grandeur and
beuty.
At every turn of the trail ne net
with things of which he had read IL
books. Some of these he recognized
at sight and they helped his mind to
understand others of which the books
| had not spoken. Literally he roamed
thru the pages of the book of eternity,
book not written by men but traced
i by the fingers of Truth upon the stra'
tified rocks of the earth IS crust. 1t was
rs if Pluto in his restless moments
had raised these strata from the deep,
IN order that men might see and
read the wondrous story Of this earth $
pre.human ages, when pterodactyl
cleaved the air and horrid monsters
crawled in steaming swamps.
He walked as in trance, forget
tink everything for the time being
but the wonders which obtruded them
selves upon his sight. Occasionally
he wished that George and Herman,
Collins and Rudolph could be with him,
Ite thought that they would be as
enraptured as he. In this he was mis-
taken. This was the home Of his spirit
not theirs. These mountains, crags
rocks, ridges, lodges, ravines, woods
and all they contained were food to
the soul of the naturalist; they were
merely interesting to his friends whose
souls fed on social problems and
phenomena. Even as the social pheno
|mena which he had observed had in
terested him but they had never called
him in a way that these natural phe'
romena called him.
1t had showed the night before he
had left Mullen and in these MINDLESS
mountains the snow piles itself up on
every twig and branch to consider
able height causes all nature to appear
like sculptured down. The mountains
and woods were clothed in an almost
etharal beauty giving to the boys mind
asthetic as we'll as scientific food. No
wonder then that after he was mile
on his way he forgot the miners at
Mullen the stories of strikes and bull
pens of gunner and hired thugs, oi
the lewd viciousness of bar keepers
and the dwellers of the redlight. These
belonged to q strange world as far Is
he was concerned. Industrial life was
TO hm oil alien world He could makt
himself at home in it when necessary
In way that Chinaman may fee
ut home in America; but given tho
opportunity the Chinaman will gC
back to China and the Americans goe:
back to America and the spirit Of
back to America and the spirit Of
poming thrill when he buried himself
in the vastness Of the Couer D'Alaue
: lie was the natural, it would be bet
ter to say the nature loving ipsteaC
of the industrial type.
The warm winds from the Pacifi,
ocean came up the valley and slowl,
but steady melted the SHOWS. 1t wa
as If monstrOus invisible hands SLOWLY
, but steady rolled back the vast whit
blanket from the depths Of The canyoI
Iup the mountainside. Slowly bu
steadily the stately cvergreens sha(
. their silvery down and stod out il
wondrous beauty against their alabast
er environment. Here and there on tn,
mountain side hung great white bank
of fog like titanic ghosts endeavorin,
Ito embrace the mountains. The SIX,
a was over cast with the soft grey film
of clouds thru which the sun occas
sionally shot beam of golden ligh
lllumining these great ramparts o
). nature which divide the continent
e geographically rs well as climatically
The trail over which he passed ra,
/, along the river sometimes very nca
it and then again up over ridges whic
took him couple Of hours to climl
Q Ever and anon he would pass des
S crted cabin near which would b
found tunnel or shaft more or les
caved in and dilapidated. Thes
were monuments to the lost hopes o
d the prospectors; that race of minin
pioneers who spend their all in delvin
after every little mineral trace in th
: hope Of finding mine which wi
lift thpm mt of thn ranLo nf ao,,p,o