brighter and brighter. The Collector said he had heard of such
strange fires, and this one he thought might perhaps be what the
white man called a "volcano, or an ignis fatuus." When Mr. Young was
called from his bed to pray, he, too, confoundedly astonished and at
a loss for any sort of explanation, confessed that he had never seen
anything like it in the sky or anywhere else in such cold wet
weather, but that it was probably some sort of spontaneous combustion
"that the white man called St. Elmo's fire, or Will-of-the-wisp."
These explanations, though not convincingly clear, perhaps served
to veil their own astonishment and in some measure to diminish the
superstitious fears of the natives; but from what I heard, the few
whites who happened to see the strange light wondered about as wildly
as the Indians.

I have enjoyed thousands of camp-fires in all sorts of weather and
places, warm-hearted, short-flamed, friendly little beauties glowing
in the dark on open spots in high Sierra gardens, daisies and lilies
circled about them, gazing like enchanted children; and large fires
in silver fir forests, with spires of flame towering like the trees
about them, and sending up multitudes of starry sparks to enrich the
sky; and still greater fires on the mountains in winter, changing
camp climate to summer, and making the frosty snow look like beds of
white flowers, and oftentimes mingling their swarms of swift-flying
sparks with falling snow-crystals when the clouds were in bloom. But
this Wrangell camp-fire, my first in Alaska, I shall always remember
for its triumphant storm-defying grandeur, and the wondrous beauty of
the psalm-singing, lichen-painted trees which it brought to light.