For references on Lincoln, see pages 50 and 51.

For portraits of Richard Watson Gilder, and biographical material, consult:  Current Literature, 41:319 (Portrait); Review of Reviews, 34:  491 (Portrait); Nation, 89:519; Dial, 47:441; Harper’s Weekly, 53:6; World’s Work, 17:11293 (Portrait); Craftsman, 16:130, May, 1909 (Portrait); Outlook, 93:689 (Portrait).

For references to material on the sonnet, see page 140.

A FIRE AMONG THE GIANTS

JOHN MUIR

(From Our National Parks)

In the forest between the Middle and East forks of the Kaweah, I met a great fire, and as fire is the master scourge and controller of the distribution of trees, I stopped to watch it and learn what I could of its works and ways with the giants.  It came racing up the steep chaparral-covered slopes of the East Fork canon with passionate enthusiasm in a broad cataract of flames, now bending down low to feed on the green bushes, devouring acres of them at a breath, now towering high in the air as if looking abroad to choose a way, then stooping to feed again,—­the lurid flapping surges and the smoke and terrible rushing and roaring hiding all that is gentle and orderly in the work.  But as soon as the deep forest was reached, the ungovernable flood became calm like a torrent entering a lake, creeping and spreading beneath the trees where the ground was level or sloped gently, slowly nibbling the cake of compressed needles and scales with flames an inch high, rising here and there to a foot or two on dry twigs and clumps of small bushes and brome grass.  Only at considerable intervals were fierce bonfires lighted, where heavy branches broken off by snow had accumulated, or around some venerable giant whose head had been stricken off by lightning.

I tethered Brownie on the edge of a little meadow beside a stream a good safe way off, and then cautiously chose a camp for myself in a big stout hollow trunk not likely to be crushed by the fall of burning trees, and made a bed of ferns and boughs in it.  The night, however, and the strange wild fireworks were too beautiful and exciting to allow much sleep.  There was no danger of being chased and hemmed in; for in the main forest belt of the Sierra, even when swift winds are blowing, fires seldom or never sweep over the trees in broad all-embracing sheets as they do in the dense Rocky Mountain woods and in those of the Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington.  Here they creep from tree to tree with tranquil deliberation, allowing close observation, though caution is required in venturing around the burning giants to avoid falling limbs and knots and fragments from dead shattered tops.  Though the day was best for study, I sauntered about night after night, learning what I could, and admiring the wonderful show vividly displayed in the lonely darkness, the ground-fire advancing in long crooked