Strong's camp consisted of three little log cabins and a large cook-tent. The end of each cabin was a rude fireplace built of flat rocks enclosed by upright logs which, lined with sheet-iron, towered above the roof for a chimney. Each floor an odd mosaic of wooden blocks, each wall sheathed with redolent strips of cedar, each rude divan bottomed with deer-skin and covered with balsam pillows, each bedstead of peeled spruce neatly cut and joined--the whole represented years of labor. Every winter Silas had come through the woods on a big sled with "new improvements" for camp. Now there were spring-beds and ticks filled with husks in the cabins, a stove and all needed accessories in the cook-tent. Ever since he could carry a gun Silas had set his traps and hunted along the valley of Lost River, ranging over the wild country miles from either shore. Twenty thousand acres of the wilderness, round about, had belonged to Smith & Gordon, who gave him permission to build his camp. When he built, timber and land had little value. Under the great, green roof from Bear Mountain to Four Ponds, from the Raquette to the Oswegatchie, one might have enjoyed the free hospitality of God. From a time he could not remember, this great domain had been the home of Silas Strong. He loved it, and a sense of proprietorship had grown within him. Therein he had need only of matches, a blanket, and a rifle. One might have led him blindfolded, in the darkest night, to any part of it and soon he would have got his bearings. In many places the very soles of his feet would have told him where he stood. Long ago its owners had given him charge of this great tract. He had forbidden the hounding of deer and all kinds of greedy slaughter, and had made campers careful with fire. Soon he came to be called "The Emperor of the Woods," and every hunter respected his laws. Slowly steam-power broke through the hills and approached the ramparts of the Emperor. This power was like one of the many hands of the republic gathering for its need. It started wheels and shafts and bore day and night upon them. Now the song of doom sounded in far corridors of the great sylvan home of Silas Strong. It was only a short walk to where the dead hills lay sprinkled over with ashes, their rock bones bleaching in the sun beneath columns of charred timber. The spruce and pine had gone with the ever-flowing stream, and their dead tops had been left to dry and burn with unquenchable fury at the touch of fire, and to destroy everything, root and branch, and the earth out of which it grew.