beginning of October, young Garst was
off into Maine wilds again, having arranged to "do" the forest
thoroughly after his usual fashion, seeing all he could of its countless
phases of life, and finally to meet this same guide--a dare-devil fellow
who was reported to have had adventures in moose-hunting such as other
woodsmen did not dream of--at a log camp far in the wilderness. Thence
they could proceed to solitudes where the voice of man seldom echoed,
where the foot of man rarely trod, and where moose signs were pretty
sure to be found.

But there was one very unusual feature in his present expedition. The
student of nature, who generally started forth alone, was this year,
owing to a freak of fate and to his natural good-nature, accompanied by
two English lads.

Early in the summer of this same year, Francis Farrar, a wealthy
cotton-merchant of Manchester, England, visited America on a
business-trip, and became the guest of Cyrus's father. He brought with
him his two sons, Neal, aged sixteen and a half, and Adolphus,
familiarly called Dol, who was more than a year younger.

Both boys had been at a large public school, and physically, as well as
mentally, were well developed. They were accustomed to spending long
vacations with their father at wild spots on the seashore, or amid
mountains in England and Scotland. They could tirelessly do a sixty-mile
spin on their "wheels," were good football players, excellent rowers,
formed part of the crew of their father's yacht, could skilfully handle
gun and fishing-rod, but they had never camped out.

They knew none of the delights of sleeping in woodland quarters, with
only a canvas or bark roof, or perhaps a few spruce boughs, between them
and the sky--

"While a music wild and solemn
From the pine-tree's height
Rolls its vast and sea-like volume
On the wind of night."

Small wonder, then, that when they heard Cyrus Garst tell of his
camping excursions, of his jolly times, long tramps, and hairbreadth
escapes, their hearts swelled with a tremendous longing to accompany him
on the trip into northern Maine which he was then projecting for the
following October.

Now, Cyrus at the first start-off conceived a liking for these English
fellows, to whom, for his father's sake, he played the part of genial
host. With a lordly recognition of his superior years he pronounced them
"first-rate youngsters, with lots of snap in them." And as the
acquaintance progres