ew silent and peered suspiciously
into the dark.

"There's more bears raound 'n yer kin shake a stick at," said one of the
muskrateers. "I wouldn't ricommend yer to stir 'em up naow, haowlin'
like that."

"I meant it for laffin'," said Cancut, humbly.

"Ef yer call that 'ere larfin', couldn't yer cry a little to kind er
slick daown the bears?" said the trapper.

Iglesias now invited us to _chocolat a la creme_, made with the boon
of the ex-bar-keeper. I suppose I may say, without flattery, that this
tipple was marvellous. What a pity Nature spoiled a cook by making the
muddler of that chocolate a painter of grandeurs! When Fine Art is in
a man's nature, it must exude, as pitch leaks from a pine-tree. Our
muskrat-hunters partook injudiciously of this unaccustomed dainty, and
were visited with indescribable Nemesis. They had never been acclimated
to chocolate, as had Iglesias and I, by sipping it under the shade of
the mimosa and the palm.

Up to a certain point, an unlucky hunter is more likely to hunt than
a lucky. Satiety follows more speedily upon success than despair upon
failure. Let us thank Heaven for that, brethren dear! I had bagged not a
bear, and must needs satisfy my assassin instincts upon something with
hoofs and horns. The younger trapper of muskrat, being young, was
ardent,--being young, was hopeful,--being young, believed in exceptions
to general rules,--and being young, believed, that, given a good fellow
with a gun, Nature would provide a victim. Therefore he proposed that we
should canoe it along the shallows in this sweetest and stillest of all
the nights. The senior shook his head incredulously; Iglesias shook his
head noddingly.

"Since you have massacred all the bears," said Iglesias, "I will go lay
me down in their lair in the barn. If you find me cheek-by-jowl with
Ursa Major when you come back, make a pun and he will go."

It was stiller than stillness upon the lake. Ripogenus, it seemed, had
never listened to such silence as this. Calm never could have been so
beyond the notion of calm. Stars in the empyrean and stars in Ripogenus
winked at each other across ninety-nine billions of leagues as
uninterruptedly as boys at a boarding-school table.

I knelt amidships in the birch with gun and rifle on either side. The
pilot gave one stroke of his paddle, and we floated out upon what seemed
the lake. Whatever we were poised and floating upon he hesitated to
shatter with another dip of his