gainst a stone on the bottom
and gave an exceptionally strong push. I don't know just what happened
next. Perhaps my paddle slipped. Del says it did. I know I heard him
give a whoop, and I saw the river coming straight up at me. Then it came
pouring in over the side, and in about a minute more most of our things
were floating downstream, with Del grabbing at them, and me clinging to
the upset canoe, trying to drag it ashore.

We camped there. It was a good place, one of the best yet selected.
Still, I do not recommend selecting a camp in that way. If it did not
turn out well, it might be a poor place to get things dry. One needs to
get a good many things dry after a selection like that, especially on a
cold day. It was a cold night, too. I dried my under things and put
them all on.

"Did you ever sleep in your clothes in the woods?" I have been asked.

I did. I put on every dry thing I had that night, and regretted I had
left anything at home.

Chapter Twenty-seven

_It is better to let the wild beast run,_
_And to let the wild bird fly:_
_Each harbors best in his native nest,_
_Even as you and I._

Chapter Twenty-seven

Perhaps it was the cold weather that brought us a visitor. There was a
tree directly over our tent, and in the morning--a sharp sunny morning,
with the wind where it should be, in the west--we noticed on going out
that a peculiar sort of fruit had grown on this tree over night. On one
of the limbs just above the tent was a prickly looking ball, like a
chestnut burr, only black, and about a hundred times as big. It was a
baby porcupine, who perhaps had set out to see the world on his own
account--a sort of prodigal who had found himself without funds, and
helpless, on a cold night. No doubt he climbed up there to look us over,
with a view of picking out a good place for himself; possibly with the
hope of being invited to breakfast.

Eddie was delighted with our new guest. He declared that he would take
him home alive, and feed him and care for him, and live happy ever
after. He got a pole and shook our visitor down in a basket, and did a
war-dance of joy over his new possession. He was a cute little
fellow--the "piggypine" (another of Eddie's absurd names)--with bright
little eyes and certain areas of fur, but I didn't fancy him as a pet.
He seemed to me rather too much of a cross between a rat and a pin
cushion to be a pleasant companion in the intimate relations o