Later, January 14th of the following year, to the same friend who was then in Manila as secretary to Dean Worcester.

“You may think it wondrous strange that I should be here in Canada in mid-winter when I could as well be south.  There is a mystery, and since you are on the other side of the world I don’t mind telling.  I am here on a filibustering expedition.  I made a firm resolution some months ago that a certain portion of Canada should be annexed to the United States.  I am here fostering annexation sentiment, and have succeeded so well that the consent is unanimous, and the annexation will occur just as soon as L. H., junior, is able to pay board for two, which will probably be a matter of a few weeks.  So don’t be surprised if you receive a square envelope containing an announcement which reads something like this: 

Mr. and Mrs. ______
of Bewdley, Ontario,
announce the ________ of their daughter
___________
to
Mr. Leonidas Hubbard, Jr.

On his return to New York, a short time later, he was assigned a trip through the Southern States.  Hence a telegram, on January 29th, to a quiet Canadian town.  On January 31st a quiet wedding in a little church in New York, and then five months in the mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and among the forests and cotton plantations of Mississippi.

Besides the work done for the magazine on this trip, he gave the Atlantic Monthly two articles, “The Moonshiner at Home,” and “Barataria:  The Ruins of a Pirate Kingdom.”

During the fall, winter and early spring, our home was in Wurtsboro, Sullivan County, New York, a quaint old village in the beautiful Mamakating valley.  Here he hunted and fished and worked, February found him on a snowshoe trip in Northern Quebec with the Montagnais Indian trappers, the outcome of which was his “Children of the Bush.”

On April 1st, 1902, he entered the office as assistant editor of Outing.  Here was a new field and another opportunity for testing his fitness.  He threw himself into the work with characteristic energy and enthusiasm, and his influence on the magazine was marked from the first.  He soon succeeded in projecting into it something of his own passionately human personality.  In the fall of that year a noted angler commented to him on the change in it and his responsibility.

“When a big salmon comes to the top, there is a great swirl on the water.  You don’t see the salmon, but you know he is there,” he said.

Office work left little time for writing; but in the early autumn of that year a vacation trip to the north shore of Lake Superior gave him two articles, “Where Romance Lingers,” and “Off Days on Superior’s North Shore.”

In January 1903 the trip to Labrador was decided on, and his preparation for it begun.  Before the winter was over his plans were made.  On May 13th it was arranged with the magazine that it should go as an Outing expedition.  The preparation held for him the many difficulties and trials common to such undertakings, but also, perhaps, more than the usual pleasures.