damp and chilly ones, but the nights were generally
cold. The bright warm camp-fire was always welcomed with great delight
after a day's journey of sixty miles on the trail. Pleasant indeed are
the memories of happy restful hours so spent, when the good honest day's
work was done, and the time of rest well earned. After the hearty
evening meal and prayers, it was each a luxury to be able to stretch our
cramped limbs before a glorious camp-fire on the rocky shore of some
great river or picturesque lake. Then the attempt to read even some
favourite author was not always a great success. It seemed more
congenial just to lie there, and muse and watch the dying of the day as
the brightness gradually faded out of the western sky, and the stars in
their modest way, one by one, came out into conscious vision, until the
whole heavens were lit up by their radiance. The only sounds were the
roar of the distant cataract, the music of the running stream, the
rippling of the waves at our feet, broken some nights by the occasional
cry of a wild bird or beast, from among the trees of the encircling
forest. The quiet, picturesquely garbed men in their statuesque
attitudes added much to the attractiveness of the surroundings.

Then at night very close to the heart, and appropriate, were the words
of the Psalmist: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the
firmament showeth His handiwork;" and, "When I consider thy heavens the
work of thy fingers, the moon and stars which thou hast ordained; what
is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou
visitest him?"

But the nights spent on the Indian trail, were not always so delightful,
or so conducive to lofty and celestial sentiments. When the cyclonic
winds howled around us through the long night hours, blowing with such
fury that it requited all of our watchfulness and strength to prevent
canoe, blankets, and bundles from being blown into the lake or river,
our thoughts were not among the stars. Sometimes the black
thunderclouds gathered and the rain fell upon us in torrents, putting
out our fires, perhaps before our evening meal was cooked, drenching us
completely, and continuing sometimes so long that we had not a dry
stitch upon us for days together. Under such circumstances, while
ringing some quarts of water out of our clothes, or from the blankets in
which we had slept, there was no disposition to sentimentalise about the
rippling of the waves on the