A BED OF BOUGHS 



ing spectacle, and must have advertised our camp 

 to every nocturnal creature in the forest. 



What does the camper think about when loun- 

 ging 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 that possesses him. Certain it is, he 

 feels the hush and solitude of the great forest, and, 

 whether he will or not, all his musings are in some 

 way cast upon that huge background of the night. 

 Unless he is an old camper-out, there will be an 

 undercurrent of dread or half fear. My compan- 

 ion said he could not help but feel all the time that 

 there ought to be a sentinel out there pacing up and 

 down. One seems to require less sleep in the woods, 

 as if the ground and the untempered air rested and 

 refreshed him sooner. The balsam and the hem- 

 lock heal his aches very quickly. If one is awakened 

 often during the night, as he invariably is, he does 

 not feel that sediment of sleep in his mind next day 

 that he does when the same interruption occurs at 

 home; the boughs have drawn it all out of him. 



And it is wonderful how rarely any of the housed 

 and tender white man's colds or influenzas come 

 235 



