itiative altered my costume in
such a way as to better protect the joints of the knees.

At a comparatively early hour I gave the signal for retiring and each
one sought his couch of fragrant balsam. After exchanging boyish
confidences in half-whispered undertones for some time, and occasionally
breaking forth into smothered fits of laughter, my followers presently
slept.

My own rest, however, was of a most broken and fragmentary character. A
variety of reasons contributed to this: the chill; the sense of
loneliness and, as it were, of aloofness; the mosquitoes, which
continued to hold, as the saying goes, high carnival; the lack of
suitable food; my depression of spirit; and my bodily discomforts--to
cite a few of the principal causes.

In addition to being racked in practically all of my various members,
blistered as to hands and feet, and having a very painful scratch on my
nose, I was exceedingly sun-burned. I failed to mention this detail
earlier. I am naturally of a light, not to say fair, complexion, and the
walk of the morning had caused my skin to redden and smart to a more
excruciating extent than I remember to have ever been the case on any
similar occasion.

I am forced to the conclusion that the pleasure to be derived from
sleeping on a bed of spruce or hemlock boughs has been greatly
overestimated by those who have written and spoken with such enthusiasm
on the topic. To me the prickly, scratchy sensation imparted by contact
with the evergreen was such as to counterbalance the delights of
inhaling its tonic and balsamic fragrance.

Likewise, until a late hour my blanket kept slipping or sliding off my
recumbent form, exposing me to the rigors of the night wind. No sooner
did I draw it snugly about my shivering form than it would crawl--crawl
is exactly the word--it would crawl off again. Finally, in feeling about
to ascertain if possible the reason for this, my fingers encountered a
long string, which was securely affixed to a lower corner of my
covering.

In the morning, on my mentioning this curious circumstance, Master Pope
spoke up and informed me that, being roused during the night and noting
that I was experiencing great difficulty in keeping properly covered, he
had quietly affixed a string to a lower corner of the blanket in the
hope of anchoring it the more firmly in position. More than ever my soul
went out to him in gratitude for the thoughtfulness of his act, even
though it had failed