The Old Camp Fire.

Bush Advocate, Volume XI, Issue 869, 9 December 1893, Page 5

The Old Camp Fire.

Bi Beet Habtb. j] Xow shift the blanket-pad before your saddle t back you fling, . . t And drawyour flinch up tighter till the sweat i drops from the ring; '. ' c We've a dozen 'miles to cover ere we reach the nest divide, • I Our limbs are stiffer now than when we first J sat out to ride, . * And worse— the hones know it, and feel the leg n grip tire— Sinca twenty years ago, old friend, we sought £ the old camp-tire, Jj Yes, twenty years ! Lord ! how we'd track its incense down the trail, ' Through balm of bay and spice of sprnCß, when t eye and ear would fail, f And worn and faint from useless quest we crept like this, to rest; I Or, flushed with luck and youthful hope, we t rode like this, abreast. c Aye ! straighten up, old friend, uutil the dius- i tang thinks bo's nigher, -v Through looser rain and stirrup strain, the t welcome old camp-fire. 1 You know the shout that would ring ont before ? us down the glade, 1 And starts the blue-jays like a flight of arrows through the Bhade, * And sift the thin pine needles down like slanting, shining rain, B And send the squirrels scampering back to their J holes again, Until we saw, blue-veiled and dim. or leaping J like desire, J The flame of twenty years ago— which lit the \ old camp-fire. And then that rest on JVaturo'a breast, when ' talk had dropped, and slow < The night wind went from tree to tree with <; challenge soft and low ! — J Wa lay on lazy olbowa dropped, or stood to , stir the flame, Till up the redwood's shaft our shadows went ] and came, As if to draw na with the sparks, high o'er it« unseen spiro, To the five stars that kept their ward above the old camp-iire. Those sentinels whose tranquil watch haUBoot.hed, half-shamed our sleep ; What recked we then what beasts or men around might lurk or creep '■ 1 We lay and heard with listless ears the far-off > panther's cry, ' The near coyote's snarling snap, the grizzly's i deep-drawn sigh, The brown bear's blundering human tread, the 1 grey wolves' yelping choir fc Beyond the magic circle drawn around the old ' camp-fire. I ***** Well, well ! we'll sen it once again— we should v be near it now ; c It's scarce a mile to where the trail strikes off ii to skirt the slough, c And then the dip to Indian spring, the wooded p rise and — strange ! ii Yet here should stand the blasted pine that t marked uur farthest range ; n And here— what's this? A ragged swale of ruts and stumps and mire : -. Sure this is not tho sacred grove that hid the old 1 camp-fire ! Yet here's the "blaze" I cut mvaelr, and there's the stumbling ledge. With quartz "outcrop" that lay atop, n«w levelled to its edge, And mounds of moss-grown stumps beside tire woodman's rotting chips, And gußhos in tho trampled soil, that gape with dumb red lips. And yet above tho shattered wreck and ruiu, curling higher — Ah, yea ! — atiil lifts the smoke that marked tho weli'.omo old camp-fire! Porhaps some friend of twenty years still lingers there to raiso To weary hoarts and tired eyes that beacon of old days. rerhaps— but stay; 'tis gone! and yet ouce more it lifts as though To stay uur tardy, blundering steps, and seem to movo, and lo ! Whirls by us in a rush of sound — the vanished funeral pyre Ot hoposand"fears that twenty years burnt in the old eainp-firo ! For see beyond ? The prospect spreads, with chimney, spire and roof — Two iron bands across the trail clank to our mustang's hoof ; Above them leap two spider-threads from blackened tree to tree, To where the whitewashed station speeds its message to the sea. Rein in, old friend ! The quast ia o'er. Tha goal of our desire Is but the train whose track has lam across tha old camp-fire ! ' ' PAii Mall Gazette.'*