all his former signs of excitement.

"Dey's a big fat goose whar de turkey roos'--
Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
En de goose--he say,
'Hit'll soon be day,
En I got no feders fer ter give away!'
Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!

"Ketch him, oh, ketch him,
Run ter de roos' en fetch him!
He ain't gwine tell
On de dinner bell--
Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!"

"Scoot 'long to bed now, you yonkers, or ye'll look like spooks
to-mo-oh! Hit's day a'ready," cried the singer directly he had whooped
out his last note.

And the "yonkers," nothing loath, for they had finished their repast,
sprang up to obey him.

"Isn't it a comfort that we haven't any trouble of undressing and
getting into our bedclothes, fellows?" Cyrus said, as they reached the
wangen, and prepared to throw themselves upon the fragrant camp-bed of
fresh green pine-boughs, which made the bark hut smell more healthily
than a palace.

The natural mattress was wide enough to accommodate three. The boughs
were laid down in rows with the under side up, and overlapped each
other. To be sure, an occasional twig might poke a sleeper's ribs, but
what mattered that? To the English boys especially--having the charm of
entire novelty--it was a matchless bed, wholesome, restful, and rich
with balsamic odors hitherto unknown.

The trio were stupidly tired; but on the American continent no happier
or healthier youths could have been found.

It had, indeed, been a night big with experiences; and there was one
still to come, which, to Neal Farrar at any rate, was as novel as the
rest. He had thrown himself upon his bough couch, too weary to offer
anything but the gladness of his heart for worship, when Cyrus touched
his arm.

"Look there!" he said. "If a fellow could see that without feeling some
sensations go through him which he never felt before, he wouldn't be
worth much!"

He pointed through the open door of the hut at the sky above the
clearing, over which was stealing a pearly hue of dawn, shot with a
tinge of rosy light, like the fire in the heart of an opal.

This made a royal canopy over the towering head of Old Squaw
Mountain,--near by now and plainly visible,--which had not yet lost its
starry diadem, though the gems were paling one by one. The shoulders of
the peak wore a mantle of purple, and the forest which clothed its bulk
was changing from the blackness of a mourning robe to the emerald green
of a sea-nymph's draper