t he got up
and built a small fire beyond the canoe as another measure of safety,
locking the stable carefully after the horse had been stolen. When he
went back to his blankets he found Lucetta up and sitting under the
turned-up flap of the shelter-tent.

"Did you hear anything?" she inquired.

He shook his head. "No; I thought I'd light up a little more so that we
couldn't be stalked again as we were last night."

"You are losing too much sleep. Let me have one of the guns and I'll
keep watch for a while."

"What could you do with a gun?" he demanded gloomily.

"I can at least make a noise and waken you if needful."

There was no sleep for either of them for a long time; but after a while
Prime lost himself, and when he awoke it was daylight and Lucetta was
cooking breakfast.

On this day they were fairly out of an occupation. With the stone
weightings removed, the canoe patches seemed to be sticking bravely,
but they still required to be daubed with another coating of the pitch,
which must dry thoroughly before they could venture upon a relaunching.
The small job done, they took turns sleeping through the forenoon, and
after the midday meal Prime went fishing, taking care, however, not to
go beyond calling distance from the glade.

When night came they carried the precious canoe to the exact centre of
the clear space and built a circle of small fires all around it, at the
imminent risk of burning it up or at least of melting the pitch from its
seams. The afternoon had been cloudy and there were indications of a
storm. Prime made the fastenings of the shelter-tent secure and stowed
the provisions under the overturned birch-bark, leaving a space where he
could crawl under himself if the storm should break. For a long time
after supper they sat together beside the cooking-fire. The mosquitoes
were worse than usual, and Prime had provided some rotting wood for a
smudge, in the reek of which they wept in sympathetic companionship.

"Speaking of smoked meat," Prime grumbled, after they had exhausted all
other topics, "that jerked stuff under the canoe hasn't any the best of
us." Then, with a teasing switch to their rapidly disintegrating
clothes: "How would you like to walk into your classroom in the girls'
school just as you are?"

"Just about as well as you'd like to walk down Fifth Avenue under the
same conditions," was the choking reply. "My! but that smoke is
dreadful!"

"It is like the saw-off between a