that we often saw
him with the gambler's sons and with old Spanish Fanny's boy, but if
he learned anything ugly in their company he never betrayed it to
us. We would have followed Arthur anywhere, and I am bound to say
that he led us into no worse places than the cattail marshes and the
stubble fields. These, then, were the boys who camped with me that
summer night upon the sand-bar.

After we finished our supper we beat the willow thicket for
driftwood. By the time we had collected enough, night had fallen,
and the pungent, weedy smell from the shore increased with the
coolness. We threw ourselves down about the fire and made another
futile effort to show Percy Pound the Little Dipper. We had tried it
often before, but he could never be got past the big one.

"You see those three big stars just below the handle, with the
bright one in the middle?" said Otto Hassler; "that's Orion's belt,
and the bright one is the clasp." I crawled behind Otto's shoulder
and sighted up his arm to the star that seemed perched upon the tip
of his steady forefinger. The Hassler boys did seine-fishing at
night, and they knew a good many stars.

Percy gave up the Little Dipper and lay back on the sand, his hands
clasped under his head. "I can see the North Star," he announced,
contentedly, pointing toward it with his big toe. "Any one might get
lost and need to know that."

We all looked up at it.

"How do you suppose Columbus felt when his compass didn't point
north any more?" Tip asked.

Otto shook his head. "My father says that there was another North
Star once, and that maybe this one won't last always. I wonder what
would happen to us down here if anything went wrong with it?"

Arthur chuckled. "I wouldn't worry, Ott. Nothing's apt to happen to
it in your time. Look at the Milky Way! There must be lots of good
dead Indians."

We lay back and looked, meditating, at the dark cover of the world.
The gurgle of the water had become heavier. We had often noticed a
mutinous, complaining note in it at night, quite different from its
cheerful daytime chuckle, and seeming like the voice of a much
deeper and more powerful stream. Our water had always these two
moods: the one of sunny complaisance, the other of inconsolable,
passionate regret.

"Queer how the stars are all in sort of diagrams," remarked Otto.
"You could do most any proposition in geometry with 'em. They always
look as if they meant something. Some folks say everybody's