The brook will murmur on; around, the falling nuts may patter upon the fallen leaves; the woodpecker may be tip-tapping; the birds will be passing for the Southland; the squirrels will be planting for the ages. Though there are stirring activities and endless fancies, your repose will be complete. Here where the lichen-tinted columns of gray and brown are rich and beautiful in the mellow light, you will be at your best--your own will come to you--with the Infinite you will be in tune. Stay till night, and from the edge of the woods see the sun go down in triumph. While all is hushed, watch the castled crag and the gnarled pine on the hilltop blacken against the golden afterglow. In the reflective twilight hour you may catch the murmur and the music of the wind-touched trees. I wish that every one might have a night by a camp-fire at Mother Nature's hearth-stone. Culture began by a camp-fire in the forest. Ages and ages ago, lightning one rainy evening set fire to a dead tree near the entrance to a cave. The flames lured some of our frightened ancestors from their cheerless lair, and as they stared at the burning wood, they pushed back their long tangled hair, the better to watch the movements of the mysterious flames. Around this fire these primitive people gathered for the first social evening on the earth. When in the forest one sits within the camp-fire's magic tent of light, amid the silent, sculptured trees, thrilling through one's blood go all the trials and triumphs of our race. A camp-fire in the forest marks the most enchanting place on life's highway wherein to have a lodging for the night. Weird and strange are the feelings that flow as winds sweep and sound through the trees. Now the Storm King puts a bugle to his lips, and a deep, elemental hymn is sung while the blast surges wild through the pines. Soon Mother Nature is quietly singing, singing soft and low, while the breezes pause and play in the pines. From the past one has been ever coming, with the future is destined ever to go, when with centuries of worshipful silence one waits for a wind in the pines. Ever the good old world grows better, both with songs and with silence, in the pines. One touch of forest nature makes the whole world kin. A tree is the flag of Nature, and forests give a universal feeling of good will. In the boundless forest the boundary-lines of nations are forgotten. Some time an immortal pine may be the flag of a united and peaceful world. In the forests' fairyland are still heard "the horns of Elfland faintly blowing." There-- "Echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever." Kinship is the spirit of the forest. XVII WILD LIFE IN NATIONAL PARKS