y.

The shutters of Night were rolling back, and young Day was stepping out
to cast her first smile on a waiting earth.

As the watchers in the hut caught that smile, every thought which rose
in them was a daybreak song to the God who is light, and the secret of
every dawning.

With the day-smile kissing their faces they fell asleep, feeling that
they were wrapped in the embrace of the invisible King.

CHAPTER IV.

WHITHER BOUND?

"Where from? Whither bound?" It is not often that a man or boy burns to
put these questions--which ships signal to each other when they pass
upon the ocean--to some individual who hurries by him on a crowded
thoroughfare, whose name perhaps he knows, but whose hand he has never
clasped, of whose thoughts, feelings, and capabilities he is ignorant.

But just let him meet that same fellow during a holiday trip to some
wild sea-beach or lonely mountain, let an acquaintance spring up, let
him observe the habits of the other traveller, discovering a few of his
weak points and some of his good ones, and then he wishes to ask,
"Where do you hail from? Whither are you bound?"

Therefore, having encountered three fairly good-looking, jovial,
well-disposed young fellows amid the solitudes of a Maine forest, having
spent some eventful hours in their company, learning how they behaved in
certain emergencies, it is but natural that the reader should wish to
know their ordinary occupations, with their reasons for venturing into
these wilds, and the goal they wish to reach, before he journeys with
them farther.

Just at present, being fast asleep, dreaming, and--if I must say
it--snoring like troopers, upon their mattresses of pine boughs, they
are unable to give any information about themselves. But the friend who
has been authorized to record their travels will be happy to satisfy all
reasonable curiosity.

To begin, then, with the "boss" of the party, Cyrus Garst, the writer
would say that he is a student of Harvard University, and a brainy,
energetic, robust son of America. Among his college classmates he is
regarded as a bit of a hero; for, in spite of his comparative youth, he
is an enterprising traveller and a veteran camper, whose camp-fire has
blazed in some of the wildest solitudes of his native land. For his
hobby is natural history, and his playground the "forest primeval,"
where he studies American animals amid the lonely passes which they
choose for their lairs and beats.