"I'll restrain the impulse then,--but it's hard--hard!"

"Oh, go ahead," laughed Kit, "if it's as hard as all that! I'll bet it's
highbrow stuff you want to get out of your system!"

"Yes, it is. In fact it's Browning."

"Oh, I don't mind him. Fire away."

"Only this bit:

"You're my friend;
What a thing friendship is, world without end.
How it gives the heart and the senses a stir-up,
As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet----"

"That'll do," laughed Peter. "That's far enough. And you didn't say it
quite right, any way."

"No matter," said Blair, earnestly; "I mean the thing. Without any
palaver, we three fellows are friends,--and I'm glad of it. That's all."

"Thank you very much," said Shelby, "for my share. And old Pete is
fairly overflowing with appreciation,--I see it in his baby-blue
eyes----"

"I'll baby you!" said Peter, with a ferocious smile. "Yes, old Gilbert,
we're friends, or I shouldn't have picked us as the fittest for this
trip."

"Good you did, for the fittest have the reputation of surviving."

"Let up on the croaks," Peter spoke abruptly. "Have you noticed any
fearful dangers, that you apprehend non-survival of them?"

"No; but----"

"But nothing! Now, Blairsy, if you're in thoughtful mood, let's go on
with that plot we started yesterday."

"What plot?' asked Shelby.

"Oh, a great motive for a story or play. Setting up here in the Labrador
wilds and----"

Shelby yawned. "Mind if I doze off?" he said; "this fire is
soporific----"

"Don't mind a bit," returned Peter gayly; "rather you would, then Gil
and I can maudle on as we like."

And they did. Both were of a literary turn, and though they had achieved
nothing of importance as yet, both hoped to write sooner or later.

"A story," Peter said, "maybe a book, but more likely a short story,
with a real O. Henry punch."

"H'mph!" came in a disdainful grunt from the dozing Shelby.

"You keep still, old lowbrow," advised Peter. "Don't sniff at your
betters. There's a great little old plot here, and we're going to make a
good thing of it and push it along."

"Push away," and Shelby rolled himself over and dozed again.

"Where's Joshua?" asked Crane, later, as, the talk over, they prepared
to bunk on their evergreen boughs.

"Haven't seen him since supper," said Shelby, sitting up and rubbing his
eyes. "Queer, isn't it?"

Queer it surely was, and more so, as time went by and they could find no
trace of th