being
overtaken, and was still smarting under the pain of his wound. Then
again, we don't know who he may be, or what friends he may have close
by. No, the best thing for us to do is to go back to our camp, and try
to get a little more sleep. We'll put out the fire, and one of the
guides will sit up for two hours with me. Then we'll wake another
couple, and in that way pass the rest of the night."

"Sounds like business at the old stand," remarked Jimmy, "Many's the
time the lot of us have done that same thing. And, Ned, I'm in hopes
you'll be after lettin' me sit up with you. Never a bit of sleep is
there in me eyes at this minute. I'm staring like any old hoot owl in a
Virginia swamp. Don't tell me to beat it if you love me the least bit.
My lamps won't go shut, that's flat, and I might as well sit up with you
as lie down, and just stare and stare."

"Oh! suit yourself, Jimmy," Ned told the urgent one; "though of course
I'll be only too glad to have your company, if, only you'll remember to
keep still. When we have to serve as guards to the camp it's a still
tongue that counts for the most."

"I'll promise to be as dumb as an oyster, Ned," pleaded the other; and
so it was settled that he could help to stand the first watch.

The balance of the expedition once more settled down. Jack crawled alone
into the smaller tent, while Frank and Teddy occupied the other.
Francois and the Indian consulted with Ned, and then the fire was wholly
extinguished. Tamasjo went over to sleep in one of the canoes, for if
there should be any attack on the camp it was believed that it would
begin in this quarter, as the frail craft might be reckoned their
weakest and most vulnerable point.

Ned Nestor had often sat out a watch, and in the midst of a wilderness,
too; but somehow the conditions seemed vastly different now from
anything he had ever known before. In most other cases he could listen
to the various well-known voices of the night--from katydids and
crickets, to frogs in the marsh, night birds seeking their prey, or it
might be the small animals of the forest barking or giving tongue.

Away up here in the vast Northern solitudes a dreadful silence seemed to
hang upon all Nature. Insects there were none, of a species to cause a
humming sound, and save for croaking of frogs some distance away the
stillness remained unbroken for a long time.

The wolf pack broke loose again, doubtless hot on the track of a fleeing
caribou, per