A NIGHT IN THE OPEN 117 



night and awoke in the morning to find my wallet, 

 with $135 in it, gone. 



After a search of the bog made twice and the 

 roadway leading to it, some little tracks in a soft piece 

 of ground near a big log outside of the camp gave me 

 a clew. The tracks were those of a porcupine, and I 

 mentally said one of those fellows with the dreaded 

 quills is the one who has stolen the wallet. An ex- 

 amination of the floor showed where the wallet could 

 have been dragged down between the dressed logs, of 

 which the floor was made. A wooden crowbar was 

 cut, and with this a log was pried up, disclosing a 

 deep hole, but no wallet. The next log to it was then 

 raised, and lighting a piece of old newspaper and 

 throwing it into the hole so as to see better, I dis- 

 covered the wallet in the hole, or nest, made by the 

 porcupine. 



That incident was ten years ago, and I still own and 

 treasure the same wallet. 



It was on this road that my youngest son shot a 

 famously big deer when he was but a schoolboy, and I 

 was prouder of his success, I am sure, than he was. 



Time has dealt kindly with the road. It is, of course, 

 somewhat grown up with young firs, and many blow 

 downs make it a harder task to travel on it now than in 

 the days that are gone. The caribou have all migrated 

 and have left the state, perhaps forever. The moose 

 do not seem to use the road in going to and from the 



