Within the last few months there has crept into our literature a little story, so classic in its simplicity, so pure in its style, so clear in its enunciations of a great primal truth, that we are sure it will abide. One reads it only to feel that he must read it again; that he must spend another hour on those glorious hills, must once more feel that keen, frosty wind in his face and taste the joy of being alive. It is the story of Yan, a boy hunter, who was driven forth season after season by a wolfish instinct to take up the trail and be a beast of the chase. “My wits against their wits,” he would cry, “my strength against their strength, and against their speed my gun.” And once while the hunter was thus fretting within him, he heard of a mighty buck that lived in the hills – the Sandhill stag they called him – herd “of his size, his speed, and the crowning glory that he bore on his brow, a marvelous growth like sculptured bronze with gleaming ivory points.” With the first tracking snow, he set out on its trail, glorifying in its strength, for his legs were like iron and his wind like a hound’s. Many a frosty day and bitter night he spent in his search; he learned a hundred secrets of the ponds, the woods, and the hills, but the season passed and the sagacious stag had eluded him.
Excerpted from ‘He Prayeth Well Who Loveth Well,’ a review of The Trail of the Sandhill Stag by Ernest Seton-Thompson. Book published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1899. Review published in Public Opinion: A Comprehensive Summary of Press Throughout the World on All Important Current Topics, Volume XXVII. Published by The Public Opinion Company, New York, 1899.