The Man of the Forest

"But how about religion?" interrupted Helen, earnestly.

"Nature has a religion, an' it's to live--to grow--to reproduce, each of its kind."

"But that is not God or the immortality of the soul," declared Helen.

"Well, it's as close to God an' immortality as nature ever gets."

"Oh, you would rob me of my religion!"

"No, I just talk as I see life," replied Dale, reflectively, as he poked a stick into the red embers of the fire. "Maybe I have a religion. I don't know. But it's not the kind you have--not the Bible kind. That kind doesn't keep the men in Pine an' Snowdrop an' all over--sheepmen an' ranchers an' farmers an' travelers, such as I've known--the religion they profess doesn't keep them from lyin', cheatin', stealin', an' killin'. I reckon no man who lives as I do--which perhaps is my religion--will lie or cheat or steal or kill, unless it's to kill in self-defense or like I'd do if Snake Anson would ride up here now. My religion, maybe, is love of life--wild life as it was in the beginnin'--an' the wind that blows secrets from everywhere, an' the water that sings all day an' night, an' the stars that shine constant, an' the trees that speak somehow, an' the rocks that aren't dead. I'm never alone here or on the trails. There's somethin' unseen, but always with me. An' that's It! Call it God if you like. But what stalls me is--where was that Spirit when this earth was a ball of fiery gas? Where will that Spirit be when all life is frozen out or burned out on this globe an' it hangs dead in space like the moon? That time will come. There's no waste in nature. Not the littlest atom is destroyed. It changes, that's all, as you see this pine wood go up in smoke an' feel somethin' that's heat come out of it. Where does that go? It's not lost. Nothin' is lost. So, the beautiful an' savin' thought is, maybe all rock an' wood, water an' blood an' flesh, are resolved back into the elements, to come to life somewhere again sometime."

"Oh, what you say is wonderful, but it's terrible!" exclaimed Helen. He had struck deep into her soul.

"Terrible? I reckon," he replied, sadly.

Then ensued a little interval of silence.

"Milt Dale, I lose the bet," declared Bo, with earnestness behind her frivolity.

"I'd forgotten that. Reckon I talked a lot," he said, apologetically. "You see, I don't get much chance to talk, except to myself or Tom. Years ago, when I found the habit of silence settlin' down on me, I took to thinkin' out loud an' talkin' to anythin'."