Good-Bye, Camp Tepee 97 



Received by Mrs. Johnson, a handsome, clear skinned woman, 

 fair haired, of height and presence, and a genially fine manner, 

 and by her sister-in-law, Mrs. Gladstone, whose Scheherazade- 

 like head-dress gave a piquantly oriental touch to her own Saxon 

 good looks, the party settled comfortably down for the evening 

 by a box stove, between two windows, one commanding the 

 south and east, the other the west. 



A winter sunset came, flaming in orange gold, clear gold 

 and green gold in succession beneath the overhead gray, rose- 

 shot clouds, the snow sheeted valley and low hills bounding it 

 lying under it in pale violet, the mountains closing the horizon 

 in deep blue violet, with still deeper bands where the fir forests 

 crowned the near foothills. Just beneath the windows, a bend 

 of the nearby creek, spreading broad in the violet snow, flamed 

 to the evening sky like a spread jewel. From one window to the 

 other the artist walked, neglecting his supper, his fellows at the 

 table kindly tolerant of his little peculiarity, and interested in 

 his hurried sketching. 



A solidly bound quarto Shakespeare, in good workmanlike 

 calf, its pages thumbed, lay upon a table and amid a medley of 

 other books were noted a well bound set of Dumas, a novel or 

 two by E. P. Roe, a sea story of Clark Russell's, Scott's St. Ronan's 

 Well, Ebers' Uarda, and some odd volumes of Stevenson and 

 Byron. Best sellers were not. A couple of fine bearskins on 

 the walls, the interspaces occupied by plates from Life, some 

 calendar pictures, and a miscellany of valentines, postcards, 

 Christmas cards, and photographs in groups gave evidence of 

 the native hunger for the expression of beauty in some form. 

 To this a gramophone on a table in one corner whose first record 

 roll, picked up at random, was titled "Mayflower Polka" also 

 testified, together with geranium slips rooting strongly in tomato 

 cans in the south window. 



Presently arrived Mr. Johnson, a bearded fair man of middle 

 height, compactly built, with the brow and eyes of a student 

 and poet, coupled with the reserved resource of the plainsman. 

 His local soubriquet, "Snowshoe" Johnson, is derived from 

 his having been the champion ski-runner and snowshoe walker 

 of the district for successive winters. 



Some mail arrived from the Grayling postoflice a mile west. 



