upon the canvas of the night! Every object, every attitude of your
companion is striking and memorable. You see effects and groups every
moment that you would give money to be able to carry away with you in
enduring form. How the shadows leap, and skulk, and hover about! Light
and darkness are in perpetual tilt and warfare, with first the one
unhorsed, then the other. The friendly and cheering fire, what
acquaintance we make with it! We had almost forgotten there was such an
element, we had so long known only its dark offspring, heat. Now we see
the wild beauty uncaged and note its manner and temper. How surely it
creates its own draught and sets the currents going, as force and
enthusiasm always will! It carves itself a chimney out of the fluid and
houseless air. A friend, a ministering angel, in subjection; a fiend, a
fury, a monster, ready to devour the world, if ungoverned. By day it
burrows in the ashes and sleeps; at night it comes forth and sits upon
its throne of rude logs, and rules the camp, a sovereign queen.

Near camp stood a tall, ragged yellow birch, its partially cast-off
bark hanging in crisp sheets or dense rolls.

"That tree needs the barber," we said, "and shall have a call from him
to-night."

So after dark I touched a match into it, and we saw the flames creep up
and wax in fury until the whole tree and its main branches stood
wrapped in a sheet of roaring flame. It was a wild and striking
spectacle, and must have advertised our camp to every nocturnal
creature in the forest.

What does the camper think about when lounging around the fire at
night? Not much,--of the sport of the day, of the big fish he lost and