"Will somebody tell me," said Smith, as we sat on the logs in front
of our tent after supper, smudging away the musquitoes with our pipes,
"will somebody tell me what we came into this wilderness among these
musquitoes, and frogs, and owls for? Mind you, I am not discontented;
I enjoy it hugely; but what I want to know is _why_ I do so? I desire
to understand the philosophy of the thing."
"As the question involves, in some sense, a physiological fact,"
replied the Doctor, "it comes within the range of my professional
duties to understand and be able to answer it, for you must know that
the enjoyments of this region are primarily physical. Now I've a
theory which is this--that every man has a certain amount of
vagabondism in his composition that will be pretty certain to break
out in spots occasionally. At all events it is so with me, and from my
observation of men, I am strong in the faith that it is so with every
one who is neither more nor less than human. It is all a mistake to
suppose that I come off here, enduring a heap of hardship and toil,
simply for the love of fishing and hunting, though I confess to a
weakness to a certain extent that way. The charm of this region
consists in the fact, that it is the best place to play the vagabond,
and in which to do the savage for a season, that I know of.
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