TROUT FISHING— MITCHELL. 51 



our rifles and setting them up against the trees, we 

 began to prepare for our night's repose. Some with 

 their heads under the bark shanty, their feet to the 

 fire, others in the open forest, with their heads across 

 a stick of wood, lay stretched their full lengths upon 

 the earth. I lay down for awhile, but the wind that 

 had increased at the going down of the sun now blew 

 furiously, and crash went a tree in the forest, sound- 

 ing for all the world like the dull report of distant 

 cannon. I could not sleep, and so, rising from my 

 couch of boughs, I went out and sat down on the 

 ground, and looked and listened. The steady roar 

 of the waves on the beach below mingled with the 

 rush of the blast above, while the tall trees rocked 

 and swung on every side, and flung out their long 

 arms into the night, their leafy tresses streaming be- 

 fore them, and groaned on their ancient foundations 

 with a deep and steady sound that filled my heart 

 with emotions at once solemn and fearful. Some- 

 times I thought one of those gigantic forms must 

 fall in the struggle and crush some of our company 

 into the earth, and then again my soul would bow to 

 the lordly music till that great primeval forest seemed 

 one vast harp, their trunks and branches the mighty 

 wires, and that strong blast the fierce and fearless 

 hand that swept them. Now faint and far in the 

 distance I could catch the coming anthem, till, swell- 

 ing fuller and clearer in its rapid march, it at length 

 went over me with a roar that was deafening, then 

 died away, like a retiring wave, on the far tree tops. 

 Sometimes my awakened imagination wotdd compare 



