62 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
my walk that night. But I had already seen that Maine 
country when I turned about, waving, flowing, rippling, 
down below. 
When I returned to my companions, they had select¬ 
ed a camping-ground on the torrent’s edge, and were 
resting on the ground; one was on the sick list, rolled 
in a blanket, on a damp shelf of rock. It was a savage 
and dreary scenery enough ; so wildly rough, that they 
looked long to find a level and open space for the tent. 
We could not well camp higher, for want of fuel; and 
the trees here seemed so evergreen and sappy, that we 
almost doubted if they would acknowledge the influence 
of fire ; but fire prevailed at last, and blazed here, too, 
like a good citizen of the world. Even at this height 
we met with frequent' traces of moose, as well as of 
bears. As here was no cedar, we made our bed of 
coarser feathered spruce ; but at any rate the feathers 
were plucked from the live tree. It was, perhaps, even 
a more grand and desolate place for a night’s lodging 
than the summit would have been, being in the neigh¬ 
borhood of those wild trees, and of the torrent. Some 
more aerial and finer-spirited winds rushed and roared 
through the ravine all night, from time to time arousing 
our fire, and dispersing the embers about. It was as if 
we lay in the very nest of a young whirlwind. At mid¬ 
night, one of my bedfellows, being startled in his dreams 
by the sudden blazing up to its top of a fir-tree, whose 
green boughs were dried by the heat, sprang up, with a 
cry, from his bed, thinking the world on fire, and drew 
the whole camp after him. 
In the morning, after whetting our appetite on some 
raw pork, a wafer of hard bread, and a dipper of con¬ 
densed cloud or waterspout, we all together began to 
