One who has never been in the forest at a time when the fires within it extended over many miles of area, cannot appreciate the danger and the anxiety of those who are thus placed. I vividly recall two days during the summer of the Peshtigo fire, when I was in the burning woods of Wisconsin. The sun was either entirely obscured, or it hung like a red ball above the earth, now penetrating the clouds of smoke, now again being hidden by them. The smoke came at times in great rolls at the surface of the earth, then was caught up by the breeze and lifted to higher altitudes, and at all times was bewildering to those whom it surrounded. No one could tell from what point of the compass the distant fire was most dangerous, nor in what direction it was making most rapid progress toward the point where he was located. At times one became choked by the thick smoke. For many hours, during one of these days, I moved with my face close to the ground, that I might get air sufficient to breathe. When finally I came to an open country where the currents of wind could lift the smoke, I experienced a feeling of the greatest thankfulness that I was delivered from the condition of the two last days, surrounded with so much uncertainty as to my safety. The memorable fire of September 1st, 1894, which swept Hinckley and all its surrounding country, resulted in the death of four hundred and seventeen human beings, left destitute two thousand two hundred, and extended over an area of four hundred square miles. The financial loss was upwards of one million dollars. That loss does not include the great losses of timber situated in the northeastern part of Minnesota, extending all along its boundary and reaching into Canada. The fire in northeastern Minnesota destroyed millions of dollars worth of standing pine timber, much of which was entirely consumed, while portions of it were killed at the root. Such timber as was thus killed, but not destroyed, had most of its value yet remaining, provided that it were cut and put in the water, during the first one or two seasons following. Later than that, most of its value would have been destroyed by worms boring into the dead timber. On account of these fires, it was necessary for all timber owners to make a careful examination of all timber lands within the burnt district. For this purpose, accompanied by S. D. Patrick, and E. A. White, timber examiners to assist in the work, and my son, Frank Merton, then a senior in the University of Minnesota, besides packers, I went, in 1897, into the burnt districts in northeastern Minnesota. [Illustration: "He camps by the roadside on the shore of a lake." (Page 180.)]