WILDERNESS PA-459

This is wilderness—
created by God,
molded by nature;
the province of wild creatures,
the far retreat of man.

All of the sixth day they had ridden the wild summits of the Continental Divide, and horses and men were tiring when they rode into the basin. Three small lakes gleamed in the afternoon sun, and around them crowded dark green timber. Rocky peaks hemmed the basin except at its upper end where a great wall of granite rose sheer. David thought it was the most beautiful valley he had ever seen.

When they had pitched camp, David broke out fishing gear and climbed to the granite wall and the lake at its base. For a moment he stood quietly, enjoying the remoteness of the rocky shore. Then deftly he cast in quest of a trout, fishing waters no other man might fish for months.

"Why wilderness?" a friend in Philadelphia had asked. "Why go where there's nothing?" David hadn't known how to answer. He had known only that he wanted something more than food and drink and the pleasures of vacations he usually took. But he could answer his Philadelphia friend now; he had been beyond civilization.

For the first time he had slept cradled by the earth in a world totally new to him. He had lived close to the land, experiencing its isolation and, standing on lofty peaks or lying warm in his sleeping bag, listening to its remarkable stillness. In ancient rocks he had glimpsed its past; in green shoots reaching above decaying vegetation he had seen the wilderness renewing itself, and in these things he had sensed its link with things eternal. He had found the wilderness not the empty land of his friend's imagination, but a land of beauty and life.

The last soft daylight hung over the mountain rim when David started back to camp. He walked slowly, and turned often to look at the lake. On the last high rise he turned again, and now the red-gold of the setting sun reflected from clouds overhead. The basin filled with the golden glow, and David knew that one day he must come again to this unnamed lake at the base of a granite wall in America's wilderness.