NIGHT IN THE FOREST. 271 



I urged him on. He told stories of old sporting days, 

 which proved that he was no idle boaster when he said 

 he had gone through all that. He grew fairly brilliant as 

 he talked. 



"I remember," said he, "the very last night I ever 

 passed in the forest. It had been some years then since 

 I had given up my rifle and rod, but an old companion 

 persuaded me to join him in November in Sullivan County, 

 in New York, and I went up the Erie Railroad to Narrows- 

 burg, and struck out into the woods for a ten-mile tramp 

 to our appointed place of meeting. I knew the country 

 as well as you know these mountains, but at evening I 

 had loitered so that instead of being near the cabin of 

 our old guide I was three miles away; darkness was set- 

 tling down fast, and a heavy snow-storm was evidently 

 coming on. I, who had often said I would never camp 

 out again so long as roofs remained among the inhabit- 

 ants of earth, found myself wishing for the darkest hole in 

 a rock or a hollow tree. Is it that the ground is not so 

 soft a bed as it used to be, or have we grown harder ? 



" Night and gloom thickened around me. My eyes, 

 from watching the clouds, retained vision of them longer 

 than one who opened his suddenly at the place and time 

 would have believed possible. The trees had passed 

 through the various shapes and shadows which they as- 

 sume in the twilight and first darkness. They were grim, 

 tall giants, some standing, some leaning, some fallen 

 prone and lying as they fell, dead and still ; and some had 

 gone to dust that lay in long mounds, like the graves of 

 old kings. I kept on, pushing my way steadily, for there 

 was no spot that I could find fit for a resting-place, and 

 I had hope of reaching a good point for the night-halt by 

 proceeding. I hit on it at length. There was a hill down 



