they bite?"

"No, they nibble; scarcely ever take a full bite out."

"It's horrid!"

Towards morning it grows chilly; the guides have let the fire go out;
the blankets will slip down. Anxiety begins to be expressed about the
dawn.

"What time does the sun rise?"

"Awful early. Did you sleep?

"Not a wink. And you?"

"In spots. I'm going to dig up this root as soon as it is light enough."

"See that mist on the lake, and the light just coming on the Gothics!
I'd no idea it was so cold: all the first part of the night I was
roasted."

"What were they talking about all night?"

When the party crawls out to the early breakfast, after it has washed
its faces in the lake, it is disorganized, but cheerful. Nobody admits
much sleep; but everybody is refreshed, and declares it delightful. It
is the fresh air all night that invigorates; or maybe it is the tea,
or the slap-jacks. The guides have erected a table of spruce bark, with
benches at the sides; so that breakfast is taken in form. It is served
on tin plates and oak chips. After breakfast begins the day's work.
It may be a mountain-climbing expedition, or rowing and angling in the
lake, or fishing for trout in some stream two or three miles distant.
Nobody can stir far from camp without a guide. Hammocks are swung,
bowers are built novel-reading begins, worsted work appears, cards
are shuffled and dealt. The day passes in absolute freedom from
responsibility to one's self. At night when the expeditions return, the
camp resumes its animation. Adventures are recounted, every statement of
the narrator being disputed and argued. Everybody has become an adept in
woodcraft; but nobody credits his neighbor with like instinct. Society
getting resolved into its elements, confidence is gone.

Whilst the hilarious party are at supper, a drop or two of rain falls.
The head guide is appealed to. Is it going to rain? He says it does
rain. But will it be a rainy night? The guide goes down to the lake,
looks at the sky, and concludes that, if the wind shifts a p'int more,
there is no telling what sort of weather we shall have. Meantime the
drops patter thicker on the leaves overhead, and the leaves, in turn,
pass the water down to the table; the sky darkens; the wind rises; there
is a kind of shiver in the woods; and we scud away into the shanty,
taking the remains of our supper, and eating it as best we can. The
rain increases. The fire sputters and fumes. All the trees ar