kindled, and the frugal evening meal prepared and eaten; and when the meal is over, the incidents and adventures of the day are related, and the prospects for the night and the morrow are discussed. A number of campfire stories are told,—stories of the hunt and the trail, of war with its carnage and strife, and of the peaceful home of boyhood. Meanwhile, the twilight has changed to inky darkness, the frowning cliffs, rising a thousand feet on either side, can no longer be seen, except looking far up, the ragged outline of their tops is faintly discernible against the clear blue sky where the watch stars have taken their stand. The travelers are just be ginning to weary of the conversation, when suddenly and without warning, the guide has raised a bugle to his lips, and broken the stillness of the night in a merry burst of sound, a long-drawn, deep-toned bugle call, increasing in its volume to a climax, then fading slowly, softly on the air. But hark ! and listen to the echoes 1 From far and near the notes come bounding back; each rocky wall and crag repeats the sound; and ever back and forth across the canyon, the echoes rise and fall until it seems that all of Nature's voices have joined to sing a joyful chorus song. The bugle's single voice has aroused a thousand more, each sym pathetic with the first, yet rounder, sweeter in its tone. They rise and fan, then echo once again; and as they strike the listen ing ear, a thousand recollections are sent flashing through the brain, the fleeting fancy is aroused, the faltering heart beats quickened, until the imagination reaches out beyond life's sordid toil to a distant, happy dreamland. But the echoes become fainter and fainter, farther and farther away, and one by one they are hushed until, like the last note of the bugle call, the last faint echo, that seems to come from some mysterious, boundless void, has sounded on the air and ceased, and all again is still. Yes, all is still, and the silence, seems even more hushed than it was before; and yet we know it needs but the master tone to wake the echoes from their slumber once again. So even in this life of ours, each one of us a traveler on the way, we find our path walled in by circumstance; and as we journey on, we come to know that there are but a few guides and a few bugles, and the rest of the noise of the world is merely the far away echoes mingled with our own small voices murmuring over our daily task. VOICES AND ECHOES
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers