ep. And
sleep they do. The sound, deep, restful sleep of healthy young manhood,
inhaling pure mountain air on the healthiest bed yet known to man.

When it is past midnight, and the fire burns low, and the chill night
breeze drifts into camp, they still do not rouse up, but only spoon
closer, and sleep right on. Only the O.W. turns out sleepily, at two
bells in the middle watch, after the manner of hunters, trappers, and
sailors, the world over. He quietly rebuilds the fire, reduces a bit of
navy plug to its lowest denomination, and takes a solitary smoke--still
holding down his favorite log. Quizzically and quietly he regards the
sleeping youngsters, and wonders if among them all there is one who
will do as he has done, i.e., relinquish all of what the world reckons
as success, for the love of nature and a free forest life. He hopes
not. And yet, as he glances at the calm yellow moon overhead, and
listens to the low murmur of the little waterfall below the spring, he
has a faint notion that it is not all loss and dross.

Knocking the ashes from his pipe he prepares to turn in, murmuring to
himself, half sadly, half humorously, "I have been young, and now I am
old; yet have I never seen the true woodsman forsaken, or his seed
begging bread--or anything else, so to speak--unless it might be a
little tobacco or a nip of whisky." And he creeps into his blanket-bag,
backs softly out to the outside man, and joins the snorers.

It is broad daylight when he again turns out, leaving the rest still
sleeping soundly. He starts a lively fire in the range, treats two
coffee pots to a double handful of coffee and three pints of water
each, sets on the potato kettle, washes the potatoes, then sticks his
head into the camp, and rouses the party with a regular second mate's
hail. "Star-a-ar-bo'lin's aho-o-o-y. Turn out, you beggars. Come on
deck and see it rain." And the boys do turn out. Not with wakeful
alacrity, but in a dazed, dreamy, sleepy way. They open wide eyes, when
they see that the sun is turning the sombre tops of pines and hemlocks
to a soft orange yellow.

"I'd have sworn," says one, "that I hadn't slept over fifteen minutes
by the watch."

"And I," says another, "was just watching the fire, when I dropped off
in a doze. In about five minutes I opened my eyes, and I'll be shot if
it wasn't sunrise."

"As for me," says a third, "I don't know as I've slept at all. I
remember seeing somebody poking the fire last nigh