flood in the moonlight,
"and the wind's simply awful."

He always said the same things, but it was the cry for companionship
that gave the real importance to his words.

"Lucky," I cried back, "our tent's in the hollow. I think it'll hold all
right." I added something about the difficulty of finding wood, in order
to explain my absence, but the wind caught my words and flung them
across the river, so that he did not hear, but just looked at me through
the branches, nodding his head.

"Lucky if we get away without disaster!" he shouted, or words to that
effect; and I remember feeling half angry with him for putting the
thought into words, for it was exactly what I felt myself. There was
disaster impending somewhere, and the sense of presentiment lay
unpleasantly upon me.

We went back to the fire and made a final blaze, poking it up with our
feet. We took a last look round. But for the wind the heat would have
been unpleasant. I put this thought into words, and I remember my
friend's reply struck me oddly: that he would rather have the heat, the
ordinary July weather, than this "diabolical wind."

Everything was snug for the night; the canoe lying turned over beside
the tent, with both yellow paddles beneath her; the provision sack
hanging from a willow stem, and the washed-up dishes removed to a safe
distance from the fire, all ready for the morning meal.

We smothered the embers of the fire with sand, and then turned in. The
flap of the tent door was up, and I saw the branches and the stars and
the white moonlight. The shaking willows and the heavy buffetings of the
wind against our taut little house were the last things I remembered as
sleep came down and covered all with its soft and delicious
forgetfulness.

II

Suddenly I found myself lying awake, peering from my sandy mattress
through the door of the tent. I looked at my watch pinned against the
canvas, and saw by the bright moonlight that it was past twelve
o'clock--the threshold of a new day--and I had therefore slept a couple
of hours. The Swede was asleep still beside me; the wind howled as
before something plucked at my heart and made me feel afraid. There was
a sense of disturbance in my immediate neighborhood.

I sat up quickly and looked out. The trees were swaying violently to and
fro as the gusts smote them, but our little bit of green canvas lay
snugly safe in the hollow, for the wind passed over it without meeting
enough resistance to ma