The smell of hundreds of thousands of logs in the river, the crushed bark, the slimy ooze were all suggestive of life in the making.

But the savage seclusion of the wild life in winter repelled his senses.

Besides, the lumber business meant endless figures and measurements in stuffy offices and he retreated from it all.
He had an artistic bent.

From a small child he had had it, and it grew with his years.

He wanted to paint, and he painted; he wanted to sculp in clay, and he sculped in clay; but all the time he was conscious it was the things he had seen and the life he had lived which made his painting and his sculpture worth while.