Great indeed was the disappointment and vexation of Oowikapun, who, while vainly imagining that at length he was about to hear the soothing voice of nature to comfort and bless him, got from her such a crack that he was knocked senseless, and, in addition, had his dwelling place completely wrecked. Groping round in the ruins, he succeeded in finding his blanket, which he threw over his shoulders as a slight protection against the heavy rain, which continued falling all night. Oowikapun still lingered in his lonely forest retreat. His pride revolted at the idea of having to return to the village and confess that all his efforts had been in vain and that only defeat and humiliation had been his lot. So a new wigwam was built in a more sheltered place amid the dark evergreen trees. His depression of spirit was such that for a long time he left his abode only when hunger compelled him to hunt for his necessary food. When he did resume his wanderings they were generally in the night. The singing of the birds had no charm for him, and the brightness of the summer days chased not away his gloom. More congenial to him were the "watches of the night," when the few sounds that fell upon his ears were weird and ghostly. Here, amid the gloomy shadows where the only sounds were the sighing of the winds among the trees, the melancholy hootings of the owls, or the distant howlings of the wolves, he passed many weary hours. The psalmist, with adoring love, could say: "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge," but to Oowikapun neither the "speech" of the day nor the "knowledge" of the night gave any responsive answer to his heart's longings or led him any nearer to the source of soul comfort. And yet nature spoke to him as grandly as it was possible for her to utter her voice, and her last effort was of the sublimest character and such as but few mortals are permitted to witness. It came to Oowikapun one night when he had aimlessly wandered far out from the shadows of the forest gloom, to a spot where the canopy of heaven, bright with its multitudes of stars, was above him. Perhaps in no other land can nature in her varied aspects of sublimity and grandeur as regards celestial phenomena, be better studied than in the wild north-land. Her cyclonic storms in summer and her blizzard blasts in winter are at times not only terrific in their destructive power, but they are also overwhelmingly grand in their appearance. Then her "visions of the night" are at times sublimely beautiful. Her star-decked vault of heaven, absolutely free from all mists and fogs and damps, seems so high and vast. The stars glisten and twinkle with wondrous clearness. The flashing meteors fade out but slowly, and the moon is so white and bright that her shadows cast are often as vivid as those of the sun in some other lands.