ire. His bed was thus on a level with the fire, and the heat
could not thaw the snow under him and let him down, or the burning logs
roll upon him. With a steep ascent behind it the fire burned better, and
the wind was not so apt to drive the smoke and blaze in upon him. Then,
with the long, curving branches of the spruce stuck thickly around three
sides of the bed, and curving over and uniting their tops above it, a
shelter was formed that would keep out the cold and the snow, and that
would catch and retain the warmth of the fire. Rolled in his blanket in
such a nest, Uncle Nathan had passed hundreds of the most frigid winter
nights.

One day we made an excursion of three miles through the woods to Bald
Mountain, following a dim trail. We saw, as we filed silently along,
plenty of signs of caribou, deer, and bear, but were not blessed with a
sight of either of the animals themselves. I noticed that Uncle Nathan,
in looking through the woods, did not hold his head as we did, but
thrust it slightly forward, and peered under the branches like a deer or
other wild creature.

The summit of Bald Mountain was the most impressive mountain-top I had
ever seen, mainly, perhaps, because it was one enormous crown of nearly
naked granite. The rock had that gray, elemental, eternal look which
granite alone has. One seemed to be face to face with the gods of the
fore-world. Like an atom, like a breath of to-day, we were suddenly
confronted by abysmal geologic time,--the eternities past and the
eternities to come. The enormous cleavage of the rocks, the appalling
cracks and fissures, the rent boulders, the smitten granite floors, gave
one a new sense of the power of heat and frost. In one place we
noticed several deep parallel grooves, made by the old glaciers. In the
depressions on the summit there was a hard, black, peaty-like soil that
looked indescribably ancient and unfamiliar. Out of this mould, that
might have come from the moon or the interplanetary spaces, were growing
mountain cranberries and blueberries or huckleberries. We were soon so
absorbed in gathering the latter that we were quite oblivious of the
grandeurs about us. It is these blueberries that attract the bears. In
eating them, Uncle Nathan said, they take the bushes in their mouths,
and by an upward movement strip them clean of both leaves and berries.
We were constantly on the lookout for the bears, but failed to see
any. Yet a few days afterward, when two of o