180 A BED OF BOUGHS. 



the wild beauty uncaged and note its manner and 

 temper. How surely it creates its own draft and 

 sets the currents going, as force and enthusiasm 

 always will ! It carves itself a chimney out of the 

 fluid and houseless air. A friend, a ministering an- 

 gel in subjection; a fiend, a fury, a monster, ready 

 to devour the world, if ungoverned. By day it bur- 

 rows in the ashes and sleeps ; at night it comes forth 

 and sits upon its throne of rude logs, and rules the 

 camp a sovereign queen. 



Near camp stood a tall, ragged yellow birch, its 

 partially cast-off bark hanging in crisp sheets or 

 dense rolls. 



" That tree needs the barber," we said, " and shall 

 have a call from him to-night." 



So after dark I touched a match into it and we 

 saw the flames creep up and wax in fury until the 

 whole tree and its main branches stood wrapped in a 

 sheet of roaring flame. It was a wild and striking 

 spectacle, and must have advertised our camp to 

 every nocturnal creature in the forest. 



What does the camper think about when lounging 

 around the fire at night ? Not much, of the sport 

 of the day, of the big fish he lost and might have 

 saved, of the distant settlement, of to-morrow's plans. 

 An owl hoots off in the mountain and he thinks of 

 him ; if a wolf were to howl or a panther to scream 

 he would think of him the rest of the night. As it 

 is, things flicker and hover through his mind, and he 

 hardly knows whether it is the past or the present 



