The Second Camp 47 



diffused under a level ceiling of gray cloud that forwardly over- 

 head broke against clear sky. Against the light low in the east, 

 the rising sage benches retired in gray bulks of successively lighter 

 tone into the distance, with here and there on the crest of a rise, 

 a hint of golden light from the dawn. A half seen wagon trail 

 vanished in a roll of sage. A chill wind stirred. Isolate, still 

 with the stillness of the dawn, it was beautiful in its forsakenness. 



Presently a breeze sprang up, dispersing the clouds, the sun 

 came forth in his strength, the cloud flocks gathered themselves 

 into the hollows of the hills to the north, and presently went 

 away. It was warm and clear by mid-morning. 



The first thing, of course, was firewood. One evening with- 

 out a campfire was well enough in its way when it could not be 

 helped, but it could not happen twice with comfort. So, with 

 axe and cross-cut saw loaded. Jay went away early with the wagon 

 to get the week's supply of wood. 



Bill and Art were early away in the boat with rod and gun, 

 and the artist to painting on the rise west of camp. Here grouse 

 were plentiful in the sagebrush. Fresh earth was at many badger 

 holes. A pair of eagles were seen in mid-afternoon, tilting and 

 sliding on the wind in great circles till lost sight of in a cloud. 



The situation of the camp is of uncommon beauty. The 

 door of the messtent faces the range of mountains that bounds 

 the north side of the valley. West and south of the camp is a field 

 of willow brush, brokenly contouring the edge of the deep 

 channel on the south that separates it from the big hill that shelters 

 it in that quarter, and westward opens into a wide stretch of still 

 water studded with islets of willow near the sloping banks of sage 

 that lie point beyond point to the northwest. To the northwest 

 the view over the water is bounded by the goldenly gray bulk of 

 the western slope of the northern hills, on whose sides in sheltered 

 hollows the aspens flame in golden beauty. The western horizon 

 is closed in by the tail of the southern sheltering hill, and farther 

 off, across the blue water, a part of the Madison range, just a 

 short length visible between the near hills. All day this is a con- 

 tinually shifting and changing harmony of blue and colorful gray, 

 with a splendid flash of copper light on some great shoulder of 

 bare rock as the afternoon sun slants redly down. At evening the 

 tones change to deepest violet as the light leaves the sky, until 



