The stranger warmed, too, and his rugged features glowed; he saw in Yan one minded like himself, tormented with the knowledge-hunger, as in youth he himself had been; and now it was a priceless privilege to save the boy some of what he had suffered.  His gratitude to Yan grew fervid, and Yan—­he took in every word; nothing that he heard was forgotten.  He was in a dream, for he had found at last the greatest thing on earth—­sympathy—­broad, intelligent, comprehensive sympathy.

That spring morning was ever after like a new epoch in Yan’s mind—­not his memory, that was a thing of the past—­but in his mind, his living present.

And the strongest, realest thing in it all was, not the rugged stranger with his kind ways, not the new birds and plants, but the smell of the Wintergreen.

Smell’s appeal to the memory is far better, stronger, more real than that of any other sense.  The Indians know this; many of them, in time, find out the smell that conjures up their happiest hours, and keep it by them in the medicine bag.  It is very real and dear to them—­that handful of Pine needles, that lump of Rat-musk, or that piece of Spruce gum.  It adds the crown of happy memory to their reveries.

And yet this belief is one of the first attacked by silly White-men, who profess to enlighten the Red-man’s darkness.  They, in their ignorance, denounce it as absurd, while men of science know its simple truth.

Yan did not know that he had stumbled on a secret of the Indian medicine bag.  But ever afterward that wonderful day was called back to him, conjured up by his “medicine,” this simple, natural magic, the smell of the Wintergreen.

He appreciated that morning more than he could tell, and yet he did a characteristic foolish thing, that put him in a wrong light and left him so in the stranger’s mind.

It was past noon.  They had long lingered; the Stranger spoke of the many things he had at home; then at length said he must be going.  “Weel, good-by, laddie; Ah hope Ah’ll see you again.”  He held out his hand.  Yan shook it warmly; but he was dazed with thinking and with reaction; his diffidence and timidity were strong; he never rose to the stranger’s veiled offer.  He let him go without even learning his name or address.

When it was too late, Yan awoke to his blunder.  He haunted all those woods in hopes of chancing on him there again, but he never did.

VI

Glenyan

Oh! what a song the Wild Geese sang that year!  How their trumpet clang went thrilling in his heart, to smite there new and hidden chords that stirred and sang response.  Was there ever a nobler bird than that great black-necked Swan, that sings not at his death, but in his flood of life, a song of home and of peace—­of stirring deeds and hunting in far-off climes—­of hungerings and food, and raging thirsts to meet with cooling drink.  A song of wind and marching, a song of bursting green and grinding ice—­of Arctic secrets and of hidden ways.  A song of a long black marsh, a low red sky, and a sun that never sets.