the height and corresponding light of the hut fire. A considerable
area was thus well lighted, from which I gathered abundance of wood,
and kept adding to the fire until it had a strong, hot heart and sent
up a pillar of flame thirty or forty feet high, illuminating a wide
circle in spite of the rain, and casting a red glare into the flying
clouds. Of all the thousands of camp-fires I have elsewhere built
none was just like this one, rejoicing in triumphant strength and
beauty in the heart of the rain-laden gale. It was wonderful,--the
illumined rain and clouds mingled together and the trees glowing
against the jet background, the colors of the mossy, lichened trunks
with sparkling streams pouring down the furrows of the bark, and the
gray-bearded old patriarchs bowing low and chanting in passionate
worship!

My fire was in all its glory about midnight, and, having made a bark
shed to shelter me from the rain and partially dry my clothing, I had
nothing to do but look and listen and join the trees in their hymns
and prayers.

Neither the great white heart of the fire nor the quivering
enthusiastic flames shooting aloft like auroral lances could be seen
from the village on account of the trees in front of it and its being
back a tattle way over the brow of the hill; but the light in the
clouds made a great show, a portentous sign in the stormy heavens
unlike anything ever before seen or heard of in Wrangell. Some
wakeful Indians, happening to see it about midnight, in great
alarm aroused the Collector of Customs and begged him to go to the
missionaries and get them to pray away the frightful omen, and
inquired anxiously whether white men had ever seen anything like that
sky-fire, which instead of being quenched by the rain was burning