This little brother of the bear is one of the few remaining links that connect us with the old times, when there were trees older than living men, when all the world had not entered for the race to gain the prize of wealth, or place, or renown; when it was the sum of all happiness for some of us to "go a-coonin'." It is pleasant to see the track of this midnight prowler, this despoiler of cornfields, imprinted in the mud of the lane or along the soft margin of the brook, to know that he survives, though he may not be the fittest. When he has gone forever, those who outlive him will know whether it was his quavering note that jarred the still air of the early fall evenings or if it was only the voice of the owl--if he too shall not then have gone the inevitable way of all the wild world. XXIX THE RELUCTANT CAMP-FIRE The depressing opposite of the fire that is the warm heart of the camp is the pile of green or rain-soaked fuel that in spite of all coaxing and nursing refuses to yield a cheerful flame. Shavings from the resin-embalmed heart of a dead pine and scrolls of birch bark fail to enkindle it to more than flicker and smoke, while the wet and hungry campers brood forlornly over the cheerless centre of their temporary home, with watery eyes and souls growing sick of camp life. Night is falling, and the shadows of the woods thicken into solid gloom that teems with mysterious horrors, which stretch their intangible claws through the darkness to chill the backs of the timid with an icy touch, and the silence is terrible with unuttered howlings of imaginary beasts. Each one is ready to blame the other for the common discomfort, and all, the high priest, who so far fails to kindle the altar fire. He is an impostor, who should be smothered in the reek of his own failure. Yet, as the group regard him with unkind glances and mutterings of disapproval, he perseveres, feeding the faint flame with choice morsels of fat wood and nursing it with his breath, his bent face and puffed cheeks now a little lightened, now fading into gloom, till suddenly the sullenness of the reluctant fuel is overcome, wings of flame flutter up the column of smoke, and the black pile leaps into a lurid tower of light, from whose peak a white banner of smoke flaunts upward, saluted by the waving boughs that it streams among. Tent and shanty, familiar trees, and moving figures with their circle of grotesque, dancing shadows, spring into sudden existence out of the blank darkness. The magic touch of the firelight dispels every sullen look, warms every heart to genial comradeship; jokes flash back and forth merrily, and the camp pulses again with reawakened cheerful life. Verily, fire worketh wonders in divers ways. XXX SEPTEMBER DAYS