six months, but astoundingly, he neglected to make arrangements for his trip back to civilization. McCunn's writings reveal that he became aware of his mistake when no one arrived to pick him up, and that although on one occasion, a plane did fly overhead, McCunn inadvertently sent it away by raising a single arm and waving as it passed by, unknowingly signalling that all was well. Having waited until he was too weak from starvation to attempt to walk out on his own, Carl McCunn finally committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

In his continuing efforts to better understand the workings of the vagabond mind as exhibited by Christopher McCandless, the author turns finally to the case of Everett Ruess, a young man who "walked into the desert (in southern Utah) and never came out." Ruess was born in Oakland, California in 1914, to a family which was very "tight-knit," but which relocated frequently. Ruess attended high school in Southern California and went on to study at the Otis Art Institute, and throughout those years embarked on a number of solo trips, first hitchhiking up the California coast, and then tramping alone through desolate areas of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Through his writings, Ruess communicated a "craving for connection with the natural world," and an almost euphoric joy in the freedom to wander at will. He adopted a series of new names for himself, including the moniker "Nemo," and pushed his body to the limits of its endurance on his solitary ventures. He was last known to have been camped among the ancient Anasazi ruins in desolate Davis Gulch, Utah. There is much speculation about what happened to him then: some believe he fell to his death while climbing the canyon walls, while others suggest that he was murdered, or went on to live somewhere else under an assumed identity. Whatever the case, Ruess, for all intents and purposes, disappeared at the tender age of twenty and, as far as anyone knows for sure, was never seen again.

Analysis
In these chapters, the author, Jon Krakauer, presents a rationale for his consuming interest in Christopher McCandless, the man he calls a "pilgrim." In trying to pinpoint exactly what impels individuals like McCandless to do the things they do, Krakauer examines the lives of others who pursued similar undertakings, only to come to similarly tragic ends. Gene Rossellini, the "wayward genius" that Krakauer actually was acquainted with at one time, was much like McCandless in his athletic and intellectual giftedness, his love for reading, and his insistence on pursuing knowledge solely for its own sake. He lived to a much older age, however, than McCandless, and his death was apparently purposeful rather than the result of a miscalculation of the risks he was taking. John Mallon Waterman shared with McCandless a "fascination with the harsh side of nature," as well as an impractical orientation in approaching it, but unlike McCandless, Waterman was clearly mentally unstable. Carl McCunn resembled Chris McCandless in that both "displayed a staggering paucity of common sense," but, like Rossellini, McCunn lived to a much older age, and, from the information given about him, it appears that his final foray into the wild was more of an isolated venture than the expression of a lifestyle.

It is in uncovering the parallels between Christopher McCandless's life and that of Everett Ruess that Krakauer seems to come closest to reaching an understanding of the driving force that compelled both men to forsake society and immerse themselves repeatedly in the natural world alone. Wanderlust was a part of both men's makeup from their mid-teen years on. Both were romantics, envisioning nature as sublime and becoming exhilarated in its proximity, and both cared little about their own physical comfort and well-being, as long as they were free to roam according to the dictates only they could hear. Both men adopted pseudonyms that were expressive of their life philosophies, with McCandless calling himself Alexander Supertramp in a salute to his vagabond life, and Ruess taking the name Nemo, Latin for "nobody," which might underline his awareness of his own insignificance before the vast majesty of nature. Finally, both men ceased to be, overcome or swallowed by the wilderness they loved so much, after living only a little more than two short decades.

Although in the end Krakauer cannot give a name to the restless fire that burned within the souls of McCandless, Ruess, and others like them, he does manage to illuminate its nature by examining and comparing its manifestation in an array of similar individuals. Krakauer closes this section by citing the case of a group of Irish monks from the fifth and sixth centuries, who, in small open boats, crossed the uncharted ocean in search of "lonely places, where (they) might dwell in peace, undisturbed by the turmoil...of the world." Risking life and limb, they traveled increasingly farther northward in order to escape the encroaching onslaught of civilization so that they might live in isolation and tranquility. Krakauer compares their "courage...reckless innocence, and the urgency of their desire" to that of Christopher McCandless and Everett Ruess, men who were "kind of different, but...at least...tried to follow their dream," no matter what the cost.