SPECKLED TROUT. 125 



his hat broken and rumpled, and his sanguine coun- 

 tenance looking more sanguinary than I had ever 

 before seen it, and his speech, also, in the highest 

 degree inflammatory. His face and forehead were as 

 blotched and swollen as if he had just run his head 

 into a hornets' nest, and his manner as precipitate as 

 if the whole swarm was still at his back. 



No smoke or smudge which we ourselves could 

 endure was sufficient in the earlier part of that even- 

 ing to prevent serious annoyance from the same 

 cause ; but later a respite was granted us. 



About ten o'clock, as we stood round our camp- 

 fire, we were startled by a brief but striking display 

 of the aurora borealis. My imagination had already 

 been excited by talk of legends and of weird shapes 

 and appearances, and when, on looking up toward 

 the sky, I saw those pale, phantasmal waves of mag- 

 netic light chasing each other across the little open- 

 ing above our heads, and at first sight seeming barely 

 to clear the tree-tops, I was as vividly impressed as 

 if I had caught a glimpse of a veritable spectre of 

 the Neversink. The sky shook and trembled like a 

 great white curtain. 



After we had climbed to our loft and had lain 

 down to sleep, another adventure befell us. This 

 time a new and uninviting customer appears upon 

 the scene, the genius loci of the old stable, namely, 

 the "fretful porcupine." We had seen the marks 

 and works of these animals about the shanty, and 

 had been careful each night to hang our traps, guns, 



