DAYS IN THE OPEN 



heard the guides tell stories which would have made 

 Baron Munchausen turn green with envy. We 

 even went to Mountain Pond, six miles away, and 

 all the way up hill. No wagon could make that trip 

 and survive. The lazy man had a chronic dislike 

 to walking six miles up hill on a hot August day, 

 and, in a moment of forgetfulness, accepted the 

 loan of a friend's horse. He had not been on a 

 horse in fifteen years and had forgotten the ec- 

 centric motions which that animal makes in scramb- 

 ling over rocks and corduroy roads. However, he 

 lived to reach Mountain Pond, and spent the night 

 with three friends in an " A " tent. Don't ask 

 about the fishing, for it is a subject upon which the 

 writer does not care to dwell. The wind blew a 

 gale every hour of the day spent on Mountain 

 Pond, and you can safely write the sign of equation 

 between the results of that day's toil and those 

 secured by Peter and his companions engaged in a 

 similar enterprise. 



That was a never-to-be-forgotten night. The 

 wind roared incessantly among the trees, the tent 

 shook and flapped, an obtrusive root insisted upon 

 being familiar with our ribs, and, to complete the 

 enjoyment, a hedge-hog made us a call. That call 

 afforded the one bit of comfort in an otherwise 

 dreary night. To see the artist, in scanty attire, 

 chasing that hedge-hog around the camp-fire at 

 two o'clock in the morning was a sight to warm 

 the cockles of the heart. To the artistic temper- 



