A camp-fire anywhere in the wilderness ap- 

 peals strongly to the imagination. To me it was 

 most captivating in a little mountain meadow. 

 Even in a circle of friends it may shut out all 

 else, and with it one may return through "yes- 

 terday's seven thousand years." But to be 

 completely under its spell one must be alone 

 with its changing flame. Although I have 

 watched the camp-fire all alone in many scenes, 

 — in the wilderness, at the shore of the sea, 

 at timber-line, and on the desert in the shadow 

 of the prehistoric cactus, — nowhere has my im- 

 agination been more deeply stirred than it was 

 one night by my camp-fire in a little mountain 

 meadow. Around were the silent ranks of trees. 

 Here the world was new and the fire blazed 

 in primeval scenes. Its strange dance of lights 

 and shadows against the trees rebuilt for me the 

 past. Once more I felt the hopes and dreads 

 of savage life. Once more I knew the legends 

 that were told when the first camp-fire burned. 



