“bump of constructiveness’” was quite 
highly developed on my cranium. 
Having bade Peter good-night I 
strolled back to my fire, and sat down 
on the saddle planted in the doorway 
of my new “home.” There my gaze 
wandered alternately from the embers 
of the fire to the darkness of the woods 
surrounding me on every side. ° 
Down on the beach I could hear the 
waves from the Straits of Georgia 
breaking on the shore. They broke 
lazily, gently, dreamily. In imagina- 
tion I could see their white “suds” 
spreading over the level beach and ap- 
proaching the blackness beneath the 
trees that lined the bank to the water’s 
edge at high-tide mark. The blackness 
would not be shadow-blackness, for 
overhead was no light of moon or star. 
T HEN, as I sat there quietly smok- 
ing, I had a sense of being watched 
by curious eyes, and, turning my head 
I beheld two points of light that I knew 
were the eyes of some animal, steadily 
resting on me or the fire. They were 
about three or four feet from. the 
ground, and in a clump of poplars that 
grew some hundred feet or more from 
where I sat. As I looked, the opal-like 
lights disappeared, then appeared again 
twenty feet from where I had first seen 
them. The animal had moved so silent- 
ly that I had not heard a sound. 
ACK in the tent lay my rifle. Per- 
haps I could bring down the beast, 
whatever it was. I thought that by 
stooping low enough to allow the fire- 
light to fall on the rifle-barrel I could 
draw a sight between those two lumin- 
ous points.. I got up slowly from the 
saddle. But, as I stood, there was a 
leap and a thud amongst the poplars, 
a rustling of leaves and crackling of 
twigs that sounded fainter and fainter 
as the animal made off into the forest 
depths. I had revealed myself as a 
man—foe of the creature of the wild. 
“A deer!” I exclaimed, laughing 
softly. “And it’s gone!” But there 
was little regret in the last remark. 
I’d have hated to disturb that sacred 
silence with a rifle-shot. 
ND now weariness was getting hold . 
of me. I looked at the couch of 
evergreen branches and of fern or 
bracken, spread in a hollow in the 
middle of the tent, and at my blankets 
neatly folded. Then I got two or three 
sizable logs that I had cut earlier in 
the evening, and piled them, criss-cross, 
on the red embers of the fire. They 
would last far into the night. 
Then, fixing the saddle as a pillow, 
I spread my blankets, undressed, and 
with a sigh of healthy weariness lay 
down. Never did bed of wool or 
feathers seem better than that couch. 
For a time I lay staring at the flicker- 
ing light of the fire playing on the can- 
vas above me, and listening dreamily 
to the waves on the shore. Then I went 
off to slumberland, a spirit of peace 
and contentment flooding my soul. . 
T was breaking day when I was 
awakened by a sense of chilliness in 
my right hip. Then, on the canvas of 
the tent I heard the patter of rain. As 
I started to get up from my couch the 
lower part of my anatomy sank deeper 
amongst the evergreens and bracken— 
and into 4"pool of water. I splashed 
up hastily, a trifle amazed. Then, as I 
considered, while I wrung the water 
from my nether garments, I laughed 
at my own folly. I had planted my 
tent over a neat little hollow! 
“Some camper!” I can hear some 
happy brother chuckle. 
But honestly, brother, haven’t you 
made just such a bonehead mistake 
during your out-o’-door experiences? 
Come, now. ’Fess up. 
K * * * 
Through the closed folding doors 
that separates my New York furnished 
room from the room next to it there 
drifts the odor of stale cigarette smoke 
and the chatter of voices in a tongue I 
do not understand. I lift the sprig of 
cedar and press it to my lips. 
(To be continued) 
ce i ma AUC ngewe Wy aia Aer ncnngote ames win dome NRRonaR mre Hew gerne Mee 
rey 

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