he sand.

The moon had fallen behind the western forests; the stars were becoming
fainter in the sky, and about him the darkness was drawing in like a
curtain. He loved this hour that bridged the northern night with the
northern day, and he sat motionless and still, covering the glow of
fire in his pipe bowl with the palm of his hand.

Out of the brush ambled the porcupine, chattering and talking to itself
in its queer and good-humoured way, fat as a poplar bud ready to burst,
and so intent on reaching the edge of the lake that it passed in its
stupid innocence so close that Philip might have struck it with a
stick. And then there swooped down from out of the cover of the black
spruce a gray cloudlike thing that came with the silence and lightness
of a huge snowflake, hovered for an instant over the porcupine, and
disappeared into the darkness beyond. And the porcupine, still
oblivious of danger and what the huge owl would have done to him had he
been a snowshoe rabbit instead of a monster of quills, drank his fill
leisurely and ambled back as he had come, chattering his little song of
good-humour and satisfaction.

One after another there came now the sounds that merged dying night
into the birth of day, and for the hundredth time Philip listened to
the wonders that never grew old for him. The laugh of the loon was no
longer a raucous, mocking cry of exultation and triumph, but a timid,
question note--half drowsy, half filled with fear; and from the
treetops came the still lower notes of the owls, their night's hunt
done, and seeking now the densest covers for the day. And then, from
deep back in the forests, came a cry that was filled with both hunger
and defiance--the wailing howl of a wolf. With these night sounds came
the first cheep, cheep, cheep of the little brush sparrow, still drowsy
and uncertain, but faintly heralding the day. Wings fluttered in the
spruce and cedar thickets. From far overhead came the honking of Canada
geese flying southward. And one by one the stars went out, and in the
south-eastern skies a gray hand reached up slowly over the forests and
wiped darkness from the earth. Not until then did Philip rise from his
seat and turn his face toward camp.

He tried to throw off the feeling of oppression that still clung to
him. By the time he reached camp he had partly succeeded. The fire was
burning brightly again, and Jean was busy preparing breakfast. To his
surprise he saw Josephine standing