ed companions. Men from all walks of
life are lured by its cheery blaze. Here sits the noted divine in
search of recreation, and, incidentally, material for future sermonic
use; a prominent physician, glad to escape for a season the
complaining ills, real or imaginary, of his many patients; a judge,
whose benign expression, as he straightens the leaders in his flybook,
or carefully wipes the moisture from his split bamboo rod, suggests
nothing of justice dispensed with an iron hand; and Emanuel, our
Mexican guide, who contentedly inhales the smoke from his cigarette as
he lounges in the warmth of the blazing camp fire, dreaming of his
senorita.

Who can withstand the call of the camp fire, when the sap begins to
run in the trees, and the buds swell with growing life? The meadow
larks call from the pasture, and overhead the killdee pipes his
plaintive call. One longs to lie in the sunshine and watch the clouds
go trailing over the valley. The smell of the woods and the smoke of
the camp fire are in the air, and that old restless longing steals
over him. It is a malady that no prescription compounded by the hand
of a physician can alleviate. Its only antidote is a liberal dose of
Mother Nature's remedy, "God's Out-of-Doors."

What changes the close contact of nature makes in her loving children!
You would hardly know these men dressed in khaki suits and flannel
shirts, smoking their evening pipes around the camp fire, as the same
men who attend receptions and banquets in the city, dressed in
conventional evening clothes; and I dare say they enjoy the camp fire,
with its homely fare and cheery blaze, far more than electric-lighted
parlors and costly catering.

But the camp fire wanes. A stick burns through and falls asunder,
sending up a shower of sparks. Charred embers only remain. We spread
our blankets with knapsack for pillow. With no sound of traffic to
mar our slumbers, soothed by the wind in the branches, and the gentle
song of the mountain brook for a lullaby, we are wooed to sleep on the
broad bosom of Mother Earth.

[Illustration]

Trout Fishing in the Berkeley Hills

Since the days when Izaak Walton wrote The Complete Angler, men have
emulated his example, and gone forth with rod and reel to tempt the
finny tribe from dashing mountain brook or quiet river.

We, being his disciples, thought to follow his example, and spend the
day in the Berkeley hills whipping the stream for the wary brook
trou