ls at hand they had never accomplished their
undertaking. Indeed, it was a labor of considerable time. Not only was
that first meal of boiled beans cooked and eaten, but several more of
the same sort followed. To vary these, Pierre baked some, in the same
method as he had boiled them, or else in the ashes of their fire. He
even fashioned a sort of hook from a coat button and with cedar roots
for a line, caught a fish now and then. But they craved the seasoning
of salt, and even the dessert of blue-berries which nature provided
them could not satisfy this longing, which grew almost intolerable to
Adrian's civilized palate.

"Queer, isn't it? When I was at that lumber camp I nearly died because
all the meat, or nearly all, was so salt. Got so I couldn't eat
anything, hardly. Now, just because I haven't salt I can't eat,
either."

"Indians not that way. Indians eat one thing same's another. Indian
just wants to live, don't care about the rest. Indian never eats too
much. I'm all Indian now."

Adrian opened his eyes to their widest, then threw himself back and
laughed till the tears came.

"Pierre, Pierre! Would you had been 'all Indian' when you tackled
Angelique's fried chicken! Umm! I can taste it now!"

But at length the new canoe was ready. They had put as few ribs into
it as would suffice to hold it in shape and Pierre had carefully sewn
it with the roots of the black cedar, which serves the woodsman for so
many purposes, where thread or twine is needed. They had made a paddle
and a pole as well as they could with their knives, and having nothing
to pack except themselves and their small remnant of beans, made their
last camp-fire at that spot and lay down to sleep.

But the dreams of both were troubled; and in the night Adrian rose and
went to add wood to the fire. It had died down to coals, but his
attention was caught by a ring of white light upon the ashes, wholly
distinct from the red embers.

"What's that?"

In a moment he had answered his own question. It was the
phosphorescent glow from the inner bark of a half burned log,
and further away he saw another portion of the same log making a
ghostly radiance on the surrounding ground.

"Oh! I wouldn't have missed that for anything. Mr. Dutton told me of
beautiful sights he had witnessed and of the strange will-o'-the-wisps
that abound in the forest. I'll gather some of the chips."

He did so, and they made a fairy-like radiance over his palm; but
whil