292 In Touch with Nature. 



flying herons called to us from the misty skies. 

 Erratic night-hawks chuckled as we sent columns 

 of smoke into their hunting-grounds, and every 

 vestige of these tame latter days faded from view. 

 We were not, for the time, troglodytes ourselves, 

 but had them for our next-door neighbors. 



It was a most strange night, yet one that I 

 would have repeated often as the years roll by. 

 So much of life's pleasure lies in expectancy. 

 Nothing that our dreams called forth was one 

 whit more strange than the reality that at last was 

 well within our grasp. For how long had we 

 wearied of wigwams ; dotting, in our imagination, 

 every fair landscape with wattled huts thatched 

 with maize-leaves or rushes ! These, we had been 

 told, " were built in groups and surrounded with 

 palisades of stakes driven into the ground." We 

 had a stock of these ever ready to plant at any 

 turn of the road that took our fancy. But now 

 was novelty in most tempting form, — a cave. 



Morning came at last. That curious gray light, 

 born of dense mist, and that scarcely more than 

 makes the darkness visible, was sufficient to arouse 

 us, and slight were the preparations for breakfast. 



