rapids and meeting with disaster to hear such words, and feel that
every one was meant.

Who were these lads, and why were they here in this faraway land?

His astonished eyes fell upon the craft that had evidently carried them
up the river from some hamlet, scores, perhaps hundreds, of miles away.

Such a dandy canoe Owen Dugdale had never dreamed existed in the whole
wide world, for it was of varnished cedar, and with its nickeled
trimmings, glistened there under the hemlocks in the flash of the
lightning, and the glow of the protected campfire.

He seemed to feel somehow that this apparent calamity upon the river had
been the "open sesame" for him to enter upon a new and perhaps
delightful experience; rather a rough introduction perhaps, but then he
knew only such in the range of his past.

And the delicious odor of that supper was enough to arouse the dormant
appetite of one who had foresworn all cookery, one of these modern
cranks determined to exist upon nuts and fruit, which our young friend
of the bullboat certainly was not.

Both lads bustled about trying to make him comfortable near the cheery
blaze, and then filling a pannikin with the canoeist's stew of corn
beef, succotash and left-over potatoes, they invited him to set-to, nor
wait for them a second.

Owen could not have restrained himself, once his nostrils became
saturated with those delicious odors, and he started to eat like a
starving chap; as indeed, he came very near being, seeing that he had
not partaken of a mouthful of food for almost twenty-four hours, and
then but scantily.

Then came a cup of such coffee as he had never before tasted, with
condensed milk to mellow the same, and close at his hand was placed a
package of crackers into which he was expected to dip as the humor
seized him.

Boys never like to talk while hungry, and no matter how strong the
curiosity on both sides might be, nothing was said beyond the usual
courtesies necessary in passing things, until one and all declared
themselves satisfied.

But, although their tongues were silent during this half-hour, their
eyes did double duty, and Owen found a thousand things at which to
wonder.

The canoe had been enough to excite his curiosity, but everything he saw
about the camp was in keeping with such luxury.

The dun-colored tent was a beauty, and doubtless positively waterproof,
for the rain that had been beating down ever since they commenced eating
had found no inl