AROUND THE FIRE 55 
flush or darken in the flickering light, there sounds 
the slow, gentle drawl of a reminiscent voice, the 
quick, hearty laughter at a point well made, a shaft 
well driven, the ‘‘puff-puff’’ of pipes, the slowly ex- 
pelled smoke, hovering a moment, caught up in the 
column of the fire, languidly whirling and dissolv- 
ing—incense to the spirit of fellowship, to the com- 
munion of minds and hearts. 
Now old Bob Moak is talking, in his slow, deliber- 
pea ith crude, broad strokes ‘he pictures to 
us life as it was in his youth in the Northwest, among 
the lumber camps. Tales of wild men and wild 
lives with the sombre background of the fateful, 
illimitable forest. There is little eloquence, no at- 
tempt at theatricals or pose. Yet often one shud- 
ders involuntarily at the stark brutality of the inci- 
dents related and thrills with the pathos and heroism 
of some awkwardly developed story of naked cruelty, 
of magnanimity, of high courage. 
Now Brown, the Texan, deplores the passing of 
the good old days when the whole West was a cattle 
range, when men lived largely and without restraint. 
In a high nasal voice he sings interminable cowboy 
ballads of ‘‘Black Jack Davy,’’ of ‘‘Little Joe the 
Wrangler’’ and of others whose names and fates I 
have forgotten. . 
Now Frazer tells of the Forest Service, of .his 
adventures in divers states, or of early struggles, not 
so many years ago, to enforce the Government’s 
regulations on range and in forest, 
