x was set up on top of the pilot-house, and a fire
was built in it of pine-knots and bits of fat pine. This blazed finely,
and lighted up the river and the trees on each side, and sometimes threw
out such a light that we could see quite a distance ahead. Everybody
came out to see the wonderful sight. It was more like fairy-land than
ever. When the fire died down a little, the distant scenery seemed to
fade away and become indistinct and shadowy, and the great trees stood
up like their own ghosts all around us; and then, when fresh knots were
thrown in, the fire would blaze up, and the whole scene would be
lighted up again, and every tree and bush, and almost every leaf, along
the water's edge would be tipped with light, while everything was
reflected in the smooth, glittering water.

Rectus and I could hardly go in to supper, and we got through the meal
in short order. We staid out on deck until after eleven o'clock, and
Corny staid with us a good part of the time. At last, her father came
down after her, for they were all going to bed.

"This is a grand sight," said Mr. Chipperton. "I never saw anything to
equal it in any transformation scene at a theatre. Some of our theatre
people ought to come down here and study it up, so as to get up
something of the kind for exhibition in the cities."

Just before we went into bed, our steam-whistle began to sound, and away
off in the depths of the forest we could hear every now and then another
whistle. The captain told us that there was a boat coming down the
river, and that she would soon pass us. The river did not look wide
enough for two boats; but when the other whistle sounded as if it were
quite near, we ran our boat close into shore among the spatterdocks, in
a little cove, and waited there, leaving the channel for the other boat.

Directly, it came around a curve just ahead of us, and truly it was a
splendid sight. The lower part of the boat was all lighted up, and the
fire was blazing away grandly in its iron box, high up in the air.

To see such a glowing, sparkling apparition as this come sailing out of
the depths of the dark forest, was grand! Rectus said he felt like
bursting into poetry; but he didn't. He wasn't much on rhymes. He had
opportunity enough, though, to get up a pretty good-sized poem, for we
were kept awake a long time after we went to bed by the boughs of the
trees on shore scratching and tapping against the outside of our
state-room.

When we