Travels in Alaska 



away through the gray drenching blast to the hill 

 back of the town, without being observed. Night was 

 falling when I set out and it was pitch dark when I 

 reached the top. The glad, rejoicing storm in glorious 

 voice was singing through the woods, noble compensa- 

 tion for mere body discomfort. But I wanted a fire, a 

 big one, to see as well as hear how the storm and 

 trees were behaving. After long, patient groping I 

 found a little dry punk in a hollow trunk and care- 

 fully stored it beside my matchbox and an inch or 

 two of candle in an inside pocket that the rain had 

 not yet reached; then, wiping some dead twigs and 

 whittling them into thin shavings, stored them with 

 the punk. I then made a little conical bark hut about 

 a foot high, and, carefully leaning over it and shelter- 

 ing it as much as possible from the driving rain, I 

 wiped and stored a lot of dead twigs, lighted the 

 candle, and set it in the hut, carefully added pinches 

 of punk and shavings, and at length got a little blaze, 

 by the light of which I gradually added larger shav- 

 ings, then twigs all set on end astride the inner flame, 

 making the little hut higher and wider. Soon I had 

 light enough to enable me to select the best dead 

 branches and large sections of bark, which were set on 

 end, gradually increasing the height and correspond- 

 ing light of the hut fire. A considerable area was thus 

 well lighted, from which I gathered abundance of 

 wood, and kept adding to the fire until it had a strong, 

 hot heart and sent up a pillar of flame thirty or forty 

 feet high, illuminating a wide circle in spite of the 

 rain, and casting a red glare into the flying clouds. Of 



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