ittle
flames creep from the dull, dead wood, to roar and soar aloft in
gold-red pennons of good cheer.

The result proved his wisdom. When he returned in a very short time from
that ever-to-be-famous spring, with his brimming kettle, he found a
glorious fire, and three tired but cheerful fellows watching it, its
reflection playing like a jack-o'-lantern in each pair of eyes.

"Now I'll have supper ready in a jiffy," he said. "I guess you boys feel
like eating one another. Jerusha! we never touched our snack--nary a
crumb of it."

In the strange happenings and chaotic feelings of the day, hunger,
together with the bread and pork for satisfying it which Herb had
carried up the mountain, were forgotten until now.

"Never mind! We'll make up for it. Only hurry up!" pleaded Dol. "We're
like bears, we're so hungry."

"Like bears! You're a sight more like calves with their mouths open,
waiting for something to swallow," answered Herb, his eyes flashing
impudence, while, with an energy apparently no less brisk than when he
started out in the morning, he rushed his preparations for supper.

"Say I'm like a Sukey, and I'll go for you!" roared Dol, a gurgling
laugh breaking from him, the first which had been heard since the four
struggled through that tangle on Katahdin to a sight of the old camp.

Once or twice during supper the mirth, which had been frozen in each
camper's breast by a sight of the drifted wreck of a human life, warmed
again spasmodically. Herb did his manly best to fan its flame, though
his heart was still pinched by a feeling of double loss.

Later in the evening, when the party were huddling close to the
camp-fire, he lifted his right hand and looked at it blankly.

"My!" he gasped, "but it will feel awful queer and empty without Old
Blazes. That rifle was a reg'lar corker, boys. I was saving up for three
years to buy it. An' it never went back on me. Times when I've gone far
off hunting, and had nary a chance to speak to a human for weeks, I'd
get to talking to it like as if 'twas a living thing. When I wasn't
afeard of scaring game, I'd fire a round to make it answer back and
drive away lonesomeness. Folks might ha' thought I was loony, only there
was none to see. Well, it's smashed to chips now, 'long with the old
camp."

"What awfully selfish jackasses we were, to skip off with our own
rifles, and never think of yours, or that you couldn't save it, carrying
that poor fellow! I feel like kicking