Things About Camp 



29 



bank above the river there is seen on the flats below a blue heron. 

 Alertly still, aloof, one has but time to recall Whittier's lines: 



"Lo, there the hermit of the waters, 

 The ghost of ages dim. 

 The fisher of the solitudes 

 Stands by the river's brim." 



A foot crunches upon loose stones, a twig creaks, and he rises and 

 saunters away through the air with an easy, unhurried flight 

 that causes a speculation whether, feathered 

 aristocrat that he is, he be not well ac- 

 quainted with Lord Chesterfield's maxim 

 that though a gentleman may be in haste, he 

 is never in a hurry. 



The willows and aspens that clothe the 

 steep bank below are ablaze with the tinting 

 of the early frosts. The river flows placidly 

 by, and far across its breadth, broken with 

 innumerable willow-forested islets, is a broad 

 expanse of willow swamp, gloriously golden 

 and orange in the growing light, and the 

 brighter in color for the opposition of the firs 

 that line the distant bank, whose dark blue green, grayed by 

 distance, cuts sharp against the far hills, through a great gap 

 — the Madison canyon — in which, far upstream the river comes 

 forth. Downstream the river widens into a bend, whose farther 

 round is lined with just such 

 another field of willows un- 

 der firs. Through a valley 

 to which the hills here 

 descend is visible a yet 

 farther range, whose peaks 

 lume sunnily white with new 

 snow. 



To the west, above the 

 tops of the firs below in whose 

 shelter lies the camp, is 

 visible range on range of 



mountains, fairly overpower- ' '^'".\tiih'.'^'>*^'^*7i'^ 



ing in their scale and "Here I halt and paint" 



A feathered aristocrat 



