Nay, if they were not left behind in the busy, plodding world that he came here to escape from, they should have been. He wants nothing here that reminds him of traffic or politics; nothing of history, for now he has only to do with the present; nothing of travel, for his concern now is only with the exploration of this wild domain. He does not wish to be bothered with fiction, idealized reality is what he desires. Neither does he care for what other men have written of nature. Her book is before him and he may read it from first hands. Looking forth from his snug shelter on the circumscribed landscape, he marvels at the brightness of a distant yellow tree that shines like a living flame through the veil of mist. The blaze of his sputtering camp-fire is not brighter. He notices, as perhaps he never did before, how distinctly the dark ramage of the branches is traced among the brilliant leaves, as if with their autumnal hues they were given transparency. Some unfelt waft of the upper air casts aside for a moment the curtain of mist and briefly discloses a mountain peak, radiant with all the hues of autumn, and it is as if one were given, as in a dream, a glimpse of the undiscovered country. He realizes a dreamy pleasure in watching the waves coming in out of the obscurity and dashing on the shore, or pulsing away in fading leaden lines into the mystery of the wrack. In the borders of the mist the ducks revel in the upper and nether wetness, and with uncanny laughter the loon rejoices between his long explorations of the aquatic depth. A mink, as heedless of rain as the waterfowl, comes stealing along the shore, thridding the intricacies of driftwood and web of wave-washed tree roots, often peering out in inquisitive examination of the quiet camp. Less cautious visitors draw nearer--the friendly chickadee, hanging from the nearest twig; the nuthatch, sounding his penny trumpet, accompanied by the tap of the woodpecker, as one creeps down, the other up a tree trunk; the scolding jays, making as noisy protest over human intrusion as if they had just discovered it; a saucy squirrel, scoffing and jeering, till tired of his raillery he settles down to quiet nut-rasping under shelter of his tail. There are unseen visitors, too: wood-mice, astir under cover of the fallen leaves, and, just discernible among the patter of the falling rain and of the squirrels' filings, footfalls unidentified, till a ruffed grouse starts new showers from the wet branches in the thunder of his flight.