290 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 25, 1906. 
IN CAMP—MAINE. 
ever, for when the fire reached the edge of the 
forest it did not stop there, but ran through 
the grass and along the fences toward the house. 
The heat of the great fire had been enough to 
dry all vegetation near it, and the flames licked 
it up clean; but as they got away from the edge 
of the woods, the progress was slower, as there 
was less and less that would burn. 
Still our little fire-surrounded band fought on, 
and had all they could do to keep the flames 
away. Many times it ran down the fence, and 
while they were fighting it in one place, it would 
spring up in another. Soon a new danger 
threatened them. Great pieces of bark, leaves 
and even twigs, all alive and blazing, began to 
drop around them, and it was evident that they 
must hurry to the house and try to save that 
from the fire on the roof. With great spruce 
boughs they beat out the fire as fast as it fell, 
and by the utmost exertion managed to keep it 
under control. Many times the barn caught, 
but by hard work, good luck and a lot of water 
they were able to extinguish the blaze before it 
got beyond control. Once the chips in the yard 
were on fire, and then it looked almost as though 
they were helpless, but by constant beating with 
the boughs they were able to extinguish it be¬ 
fore it reached the house. 
Now the smoke was less dense, and they saw 
that the fire had passed beyond them and’ was 
burning fiercely on the other side of the valley. 
Along the brook at the foot of the mountains 
there had been a great deal of chopping the 
winter before, and when the fire got mong 
those treetops it made great leaps forward, 
devouring the forest with a roar. Great trees, 
monarchs of the forest that had for generations 
withstood the beatings of the storms in winter 
and the washings of the floods in summer came 
thundering to the earth, making the ground 
tremble as they fell, sending up great masses of 
sparks and fire to fall further on and spread 
destruction in other places. 
Even the so.l. composed of decayed foliage, 
which for countless years had been lying on 
the rocks, was eaten up, and the little streams 
that the drouth of summer had not stopped 
were licked up to run no more. As the flames 
began to ascend the side of the mountain the 
sight became grander, and the boys could not 
keep their eyes from it, exhausted as they were, 
and looked at the awful sight as if fascinated 
by it. 
As the sun sank behind the hills and it be¬ 
came darker, the picture was still grander, and 
with great reluctance they left the scene to go 
in to the supper that the woman and her brave 
little daughters had prepared for them since the 
extreme danger had passed. Then they went out 
again and watched the fire. The mass of the 
flame had passed beyond them, leaving on each 
side nothing but a blackened, smoky wilderness 
of unsightly stubs, here and there lighted up by 
huge trees still burning. 
If the scene before them was grand, not so 
that behind them. The fire on the mountainside 
lighted up the whole country, and all they could 
see bn either hand was darkness, desolation and 
ruin as far as the eye could reach. Where in 
the morning had been beauty, majesty and 
grandeur, there now was nothing but destruc¬ 
tion, barrenness and ugliness. Surely fire is 
a hard master if a good servant. 
Soon the fire had run up the side of the hills 
and disappeared over the tops; and there among 
the rolling clouds of smoke and leaping tongue 
of flame stood the Pulpit rock plainly in view. 
At its base was a seething furnace of fire; and its 
precipitous sides stood out in the darkness 
against a wall of flame. Just then their atten¬ 
tion was called by one of the children to the top 
of the Pulpit. There plainly outlined against the 
light of the fire beyond was the figure of a man. 
He stood on the very edge of the rock perfectly 
motionless, as if looking over the terrible wreck 
the fire had made. Then for a moment he flung 
his arms above his head. 
They could see that it was a large man, clothed 
in rags that fluttered as he moved. His head 
was surmounted by a mass of hair, and he had 
a long beard. For a moment he stood there, 
then flinging his arms high above his head as 
if calling additional disaster on the valley be¬ 
low, he took one step forward and flung him¬ 
self into the mass of fire that raged far beneath. 
For a moment all were spellbound. Then the 
mother rose with a cry of horror, and gathering 
her children around her, went into the house 
and the boys followed her. 
Shut out from the sight of the fire and the 
destruction, the boys soon became cheerful and 
told the woman about themselves and how they 
came there, and asked if there was any way for 
them to get out. She assured them that there 
was no way, for they were completely sur¬ 
rounded by the fire; and if it had been possible 
for any one to have got through, her husband, 
who was working for some one down on the 
river, would have come. 
Until there had been a heavy rain and a strong 
wind, it was very dangerous to go where there 
had been a forest fire. Although the fire was 
past them, the smoke that arose from all sides 
was so dense as to nearly blind their eyes and 
so_ filled their lungs as to make every breath 
painful. The breeze which had been strong now 
died away, and it’seemed to them all that they 
had been saved from fire to perish by smoke. 
As the evening wore away mutterings of 
thunder were heard away to the east of them, 
and before midnight a heavy thundershower was 
on them, and never was a storm more welcome. 
Before the storm died away a number of men, 
headed by the woman’s husband, reached the 
house. They had set out as soon as the rain 
came, hoping to find the family alive, but 
scarcely knowing how they could have lived. 
Great was the rejoicing when they found the 
family all well and the boys there safe and sound, 
and the party started back toward the village 
in a very much more cheerful mood than they 
had come. 
Uncle Shaw was immediately told of the safe 
return of the boys, and he declared that there 
“cartainly was a special providence that looked 
out fer children an’ fools.” When the boys, the 
next morning, told him about the figure on the 
cliff, he said. “No doubt that’s the crazy fellow 
that was out there at the camp where you was. 
He probably got caught in the fire, and seeing 
no way to get out of it, took that way to bring 
on the death that he had so long eluded, and I 
dunno as any of us ought to feel sorry that he 
is gone, for a body without the mind in it is 
the saddest I know of.” 
The next morning saw the visitors start for 
home; and many were the stories they had to 
tell of their trip up to Vermont, and of Uncle 
Shaw and some others. C. D. Chase. 
In the Lodges of the Blackfeet. 
Montvale, Tenn., Aug. 15. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: I note with pleasure the hearty out¬ 
spoken expressions of appreciation of Mr. Ander¬ 
son’s delightful serial in Forest and Stream, 
and wish to heartily endorse both Mr. Ander¬ 
son’s work, and his admirers’ appreciation of it. 
"In the Lodges of the Blackfeet” is evidently a 
labor of love, and is of such excellence in it¬ 
self, as fully to repay the writer, but when in 
addition to achieving so much, a writer receives 
the praise of a host of such men as have joined 
in extolling Mr. Anderson in the columns of 
Forest and Stream, he is indeed fortunate. 
I thank Mr. Anderson for the beautiful story 
he has given us, and for disabusing my mind 
of errors under which 1 had labored for years, 
and which did great injustice to many of my 
fellowmen. 
I sorrow with him that he sees nothing clearly 
beyond this little span, and join with Mr. Manly 
Hardy in the beautiful sentiment he expresses as 
his wish. Lewis Hopkins. 
Spread of the Houseboat. 
The wide distribution of the interest felt in 
houseboating in this country, is shown by the 
very widely scattered localities from which come 
orders for Mr. Hunt’s new book, “Houseboats 
and Houseboating,” the only volume that has 
ever been published on this interesting subject, 
and particularly useful on account of its illus¬ 
trations and its plans for construction. Orders 
come from the Pacific Coast, from the Gulf of 
Mexico, from the great rivers of the West and 
from many points on the Great Lakes, the Middle 
States and New England. 
It is curious to notice how slowly the interest, 
in this delightful form of summer life has grown. 
There have been houseboats in America for a 
dozen or fifteen years, yet very few people have 
comprehended how comfortable and convenient 
they were. Since the publication of Mr. Hunt’s 
book, however, people seem to be waking up. The 
N. Y. Sunday Sun recently devoted half a page 
to the subject with illustrations taken from this 
book, and only two or three weeks ago the New 
York Sunday Herald gave a full colored page 
to the subject, also with illustrations from the 
Houseboat book. 
For the benefit of persons who have only heard 
of the book, and not seen it advertised, we may 
say that its price is $3 net, postage, 34 cents. 
