The guides cheer the night with bear-fights, and catamount
encounters, and frozen-to-death experiences, and simple tales of
great prolixity and no point, and jokes of primitive lucidity. We
hear catamounts, and the stealthy tread of things in the leaves, and
the hooting of owls, and, when the moon rises, the laughter of the
loon. Everything is strange, spectral, fascinating.
By and by we get our positions in the shanty for the night, and
arrange the row of sleepers. The shanty has become a smoke-house by
this time: waves of smoke roll into it from the fire. It is only by
lying down, and getting the head well under the eaves, that one can
breathe. No one can find her "things"; nobody has a pillow. At
length the row is laid out, with the solemn protestation of intention
to sleep. The wind, shifting, drives away the smoke.
Good-night is said a hundred times; positions are readjusted, more
last words, new shifting about, final remarks; it is all so
comfortable and romantic; and then silence. Silence continues for a
minute. The fire flashes up; all the row of heads is lifted up
simultaneously to watch it; showers of sparks sail aloft into the
blue night; the vast vault of greenery is a fairy spectacle.
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