us, over sombre prairies and across a wicked
ford--where, of course, the captain and T. got their baggage wet--and
past bones of men on which were piled stones, and the man's breeches
thrown over these for a shroud or as a remembrance of the shrivelled
thing below being human, we followed the Nez Perces' trail, to camp at
four by the broad rattling waters of Clarke. Jack reported Indians near
by--indeed saw them: guessed them to be Bannocks, as Crows would have
come in to beg. Sentinels were thrown out on the bluffs near us and the
stock watched with redoubled care.

I think every man who has camped much remembers, with a distinct
vividness, the camp-fires. I recall happy hours by them in Maine and
Canada and on the north shore of Lake Superior, and know, as every lover
of the woods knows, how each wood has its character, its peculiar
odors--even a language of its own. The burning pine has one speech, the
gum tree another. One friend at least who was with me can recall our
camps in Maine,

Where fragrant hummed the moist swamp-spruce,
And tongues unknown the cedar spoke,
While half a century's silent growth
Went up in cheery flame and smoke.

The cottonwood burns with a rich, ruddy, abundant blaze and a faint
pleasant aroma. Not an unpicturesque scene, our camp-fire, with the
rough figures stretched out on the grass and the captain marching his
solemn round with utterly unfatigable legs, Jack and George Houston
good-humoredly chaffing, and now and again a howl responsive to the
anguish of a burnt boot. He who has lived a life and never known a
camp-fire is--Well, may he have that joy in the Happy Hunting-grounds!

The next day's ride was only interesting from the fact that we forded
Clarke's Fork five times in pretty wild places, where, of course,
Captain G. and the doctor again had their baggage soaked. The annoyance
of this when, after ten hours in the saddle, you come to fill your
tobacco-bag and find the precious treasure hopelessly wet, your
writing-paper in your brushes, the lovely photographs, a desolated
family presented on your departure, brilliant with yellow mud--I pause:
there are inconceivable capacities for misery to be had out of a
complete daily wetting of camp-traps. I don't think the captain ever
quite got over this last day's calamity, and I doubt not he mourns over
it to-day in England.

The ride of the next two days brought us again to rising ground, the
approach to Pryor'