He began with the idea of carrying up his blankets and three or four
days' food. He ended by transporting up that steep slope everything
but his canoe and the small tent. It might be, he said to himself as
he lugged load after load, just a whim, a fancy, but he was free to
act on a whim or a fancy, as free as if he were in the first blush of
careless, adventurous youth,--freer, because he had none of the
impatient hopes and urges and dreams of youth. He was finished, he
told himself in a transient mood of bitterness. Why should he be
governed by practical considerations? He was here, alone in the
unsentient, uncritical forest. It did not matter to any one whether he
came or stayed. To himself it mattered least of all, he thought. There
was neither plan nor purpose nor joy in his existence, save as he
conceived the first casually, or snatched momentarily at the other in
such simple ways as were available to him here,--here where at least
there was no one and nothing to harass him, where he was surrounded by
a wild beauty that comforted him in some fashion beyond his
understanding.
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