ooked
like a weird prowler just out of the woods, and seemed half-inclined
to come out into the light and speak to me. All was still. The moonlit
mist clung fantastically to the mossy festoons of the fir trees.
I was miles from the nearest human soul, and as I stood in the
enchanting scene, amid the beautiful mellow light, I seemed to have
been wafted back into the legend-weaving age. The silence was softly
invaded by zephyrs whispering in the treetops, and a few moonlit
clouds that showed shadow centre-boards came lazily drifting along the
bases of the minarets, as though they were looking for some place in
particular, although in no hurry to find it. Heavier cloud-flotillas
followed, and these floated on the forest sea, touching the treetops
with the gentleness of a lover's hand. I lay down by my camp-fire to
let my fancy frolic, and fairest dreams came on.

It was while camping once on the slope of Mt. Coxcomb that I felt most
strongly the spell of the camp-fire. I wish every one could have a
night by a camp-fire,--by Mother Nature's old hearthstone. When one
sits in the forest within the camp-fire's magic tent of light, amid
the silent, sculptured trees, there go thrilling through one's blood
all the trials and triumphs of our race. The blazing wood, the ragged
and changing flame, the storms and calms, the mingling smoke and
blaze, the shadow-figures that dance against the trees, the scenes and
figures in the fire,--with these, though all are new and strange, yet
you feel at home once more in the woods. A camp-fire in the forest is
the most enchanting place on life's highway by which to have a lodging
for the night.

Index

Alma, 119, 127.

_Arctostaphylos Uva-Ursi_. _See_ Kinnikinick.

Aspen, 204-206, 208.

Bears, vapor from a bear, 20;
a bear and her cubs, 79;
prospectors besieged by, 217-229;
feeding on choke-cherries, 237.

Beaver, 238, 242;
usefulness of, 53;
cutting trees, 54-56;
young, 56-58;
houses of, 57;
granary of, 58;
tools of, 58, 59;
dam-building, 59, 60;
growth of a dam, 61;
the dam a highway, 61;
influence of dams on stream-flow, 61-64;
dams catching and holding soil, 64-67;
value of, 67.

Birds, Rocky Mountain, abundance of, 151, 152, 237;
various species of, 152-159;
song of, 159;
a pet quail, 160-167;
of a mountain park, 241, 242.

Boulder, a lava, 247-249.

Cabin, a ni