g.
Seizing his axe, he laid about him vigorously with the head of it, and
in a few seconds destroyed all the stumps, which he carefully collected,
and, along with some loose moss and twigs, put into the hollow, and so
filled it up. Having improved things thus far, he rose and strode out
of the circle of light into the wood. In a few minutes he reappeared,
bearing a young spruce fir tree on his shoulder, which with the axe he
stripped of its branches. These branches were flat in form, and
elastic--admirably adapted for making a bed on; and when Charley spread
them out under the canoe in a pile of about four inches in depth by four
feet broad and six feet long, the stumps and the hollow were overwhelmed
altogether. He then ran to Mr Park's tent, and fetched thence a small
flat bundle covered with oilcloth and tied with a rope. Opening this,
he tossed out its contents, which were two large and very thick
blankets--one green, the other white; a particularly minute feather
pillow, a pair of moccasins, a broken comb, and a bit of soap. Then he
opened a similar bundle containing Harry's bed, which he likewise tossed
out; and then kneeling down, he spread the two white blankets on the top
of the branches, the two green blankets above these, and the two pillows
at the top, as far under the shelter of the canoe as he could push them.
Having completed the whole in a manner that would have done credit to a
chambermaid, he continued to sit on his knees, with his hands in his
pockets, smiling complacently, and saying, "Capital--first-rate!"

"Here we are, Charley. Have a second supper--do!"

Harry placed the smoking kettle by the head of the bed, and squatting
down beside it, began to eat as only a boy _can_ eat who has had nothing
since breakfast.

Charley attacked the kettle too--as he said, "out of sympathy," although
he "wasn't hungry a bit." And really, for a man who was not hungry, and
had supped half an hour before, the appetite of _sympathy_ was
wonderfully strong.

But Harry's powers of endurance were now exhausted. He had spent a long
day of excessive fatigue and excitement, and having wound it up with a
heavy supper, sleep began to assail him with a fell ferocity that
nothing could resist. He yawned once or twice, and sat on the bed
blinking unmeaningly at the fire, as if he had something to say to it
which he could not recollect just then. He nodded violently, much to
his own surprise, once or twice, and be