rinking-cup and dinner-pot, were the
only evidences that the spot had ever been visited by civilized man.
"Oh!" thought I, "why did they forget to leave me food!" it never
occurring to me that they might have cached it, as I have since
learned they did, in several spots nearer the place of my separation
from them. I left the camp in deep dejection, with the purpose of
following the trail of the party to the Madison. Carefully inspecting
the faint traces left of their course of travel, I became satisfied
that from some cause they had made a retrograde movement from this
camp, and departed from the lake at a point further down stream.
Taking this as an indication that there were obstructions above, I
commenced retracing my steps along the beach. An hour of sunshine in
the afternoon enabled me to procure fire, which, in the usual manner,
I carried to my camping-place. There I built a fire, and to protect
myself from the wind, which was blowing violently, lashing the lake
into foam, I made a bower of pine boughs, crept under it, and very
soon fell asleep. How long I slept I know not, but I was aroused by
the snapping and cracking of the burning foliage, to find my shelter
and the adjacent forest in a broad sheet of flame. My left hand was
badly burned, and my hair singed closer than a barber would have
trimmed it, while making my escape from the semi-circle of burning
trees. Among the disasters of this fire, there was none I felt more
seriously than the loss of my buckle-tongue knife, my pin fish-hook,
and tape fish-line.

[Illustration: The Burning Forest.]

The grandeur of the burning forest surpasses description. An immense
sheet of flame, following to their tops the lofty trees of an almost
impenetrable pine forest, leaping madly from top to top, and sending
thousands of forked tongues a hundred feet or more athwart the
midnight darkness, lighting up with lurid gloom and glare the
surrounding scenery of lake and mountains, fills the beholder with
mingled feelings of awe and astonishment. I never before saw anything
so terribly beautiful. It was marvelous to witness the flash-like
rapidity with which the flames would mount the loftiest trees. The
roaring, cracking, crashing, and snapping of falling limbs and burning
foliage was deafening. On, on, on traveled the destructive element,
until it seemed as if the whole forest was enveloped in flame. Afar up
the wood-crowned hill, the overtopping trees shot forth pinnacles a