Alton of Somasco by Harold Bindloss

There is on the road between Vancouver and New Westminster a strip of primeval bush. Beyond it the Fraser meadows stretch, open to wind and sun, westwards to the sea, but beneath the great black pines it is dim and shadowy, and Seaforth was glad of that as he stood leaning against a hemlock one sunny afternoon. He would have found the task he had undertaken almost impossible in the glare of the white road that ran straight under the open sky, but the stillness of that green realm of shadow where all things were softened in the faint half-light had made it a trifle easier. Also, the essence of the spring, which had come suddenly, was in the scent of pine and cedar, and it had given him courage, and set his pulses throbbing faster.

It is possible that the man did not realize all the influences that upheld him then, but something that sprang from the steaming earth and the life that was stirring in every towering pine reacted upon him, and he gathered hope when he saw the reflex of it in the eyes of his companion.