Our camp was upon the solid rock, but when the thunder-storm was abroad in the land, that rock shook and trembled. We shall not soon forget that night of storm when our tent seemed a target for the lightning. In the morning we found two great pines rent and shivered by the electric bolts.
The Indians have their own explanation of a thunder-storm. The thunder is the noise made by a giant bird as it beats its wings against its body; the lightning is caused by the bird winking its eye.
The story of those idyllic days would require a volume for its telling, and the patience of the reader is probably exhausted long ere this. There came an evening when Joe placed a dish before us and announced, “All potatoes.” To be sure they were all potatoes. Did he imagine that we would take them for billiard balls? But there is a deeper significance in his words. After a wild struggle with our language, he manages to say,
“Potatoes all gone.” This is the beginning of the end. A hasty examination of the larder shows us that we have barely enough provisions to last until we can reach civilization. It is the Business Man’s appetite that has undone us. He is not large in stature, but he has developed an appetite that would paralyze a boarding-house keeper. The worst of it is that his appetite has gotten away from him, and goes roaming around among the victuals seeking what it may devour. Sadly we pack up and turn our faces toward the south. Word is brought in that Mary, the little daughter of our head guide, is dead. We press hurriedly on, through the sunshine and the beating storm, and within twenty-four hours from the time when the tidings reached us, our canoes are before the little cabin and we watch the sorrowing father as he enters his darkened home.
“Death comes down with reckless footsteps,
To the hall and hut.”
Sitting on the hotel piazza at Port Arthur, the Preacher watched the steamer on which were the Business Man and the Doctor, until it became a speck on the horizon and vanished from sight. He said in his heart, “Those are good men and true. Dear friends before, they are still dearer after the crucial test of camp life. God bless them alway.”
To stand within a gently gliding
boat
Urged by a noiseless paddle at the