few minutes a great pot of coffee was boiling and throwing out savory
odors. Jarvis took a small flat skillet from the boat and fried the
corn cakes. Harry fried bacon and strips of dried beef in another.
The homely task in good company was most grateful to him. His face
reflected his pleasure.

"Providin' it don't rain on you, campin' out is stimulatin' to the body
an' soul," said Jarvis. "You don't know what a genuine appetite is
until you live under the blue sky by day, and a starry sky by night.
Harry, you'll find three tin plates in the locker in the boat. Fetch
'em."

Harry abandoned his skillet for a moment, and brought the plates.
Ike, the coffee now being about ready, produced three tin cups, and with
these simple preparations they began their supper. The flames went
down and the fire became a great bed of coals, glowing in the darkness,
and making a circle of light, the edges of which touched the boat.
Harry found that Jarvis was telling the truth. The long work and the
cool night air, without a roof above him, gave him a hunger, the like of
which he had not known for a long time. He ate cake after cake of the
corn bread and piece after piece of the meat. Jarvis and Ike kept him
full company.

"Didn't I tell you it was fine?" said Jarvis, stretching his long length
and sighing with content. "I feel so good that I'm near bustin' into
song."

"Then bust," said Harry.

"Soft, o'er the fountain, lingering falls the southern moon,
Far o'er the mountain breaks the day too soon.
In thy dark eyes' splendor, where the warm light loves to dwell,
Weary looks yet tender, speak their fond farewell.
'Nita, Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part,
'Nita, Juanita! Lean thou on my heart."

The notes of the old melody swelled, and, as before, the deep channel
of the river gave them back again in faint and dying echoes. Time and
place and the voice of Jarvis, with its haunting quality, threw a spell
over Harry. The present rolled away. He was back in the romantic old
past, of which he had read so much, with Boone and Kenton and Harrod and
the other great forest rangers.

The darkness sank down, deeper and heavier. The stars came out
presently and twinkled in the blue. Yet it was still dim in the gorge,
save where the glowing bed of coals cast a circle of light. The
Kentucky, showing a faint tinge of blue, flowed with a soft murmur.
Harry and Ike were lying on the grass, p