Camp and Trail | Page 9

first smile on a waiting earth.
As the watchers in the hut caught that smile, every thought which rose
in them was a daybreak song to the God who is light, and the secret of
every dawning.
With the day-smile kissing their faces they fell asleep, feeling that they
were wrapped in the embrace of the invisible King.

CHAPTER IV.
WHITHER BOUND?
"Where from? Whither bound?" It is not often that a man or boy burns
to put these questions--which ships signal to each other when they pass
upon the ocean--to some individual who hurries by him on a crowded
thoroughfare, whose name perhaps he knows, but whose hand he has
never clasped, of whose thoughts, feelings, and capabilities he is
ignorant.
But just let him meet that same fellow during a holiday trip to some

wild sea-beach or lonely mountain, let an acquaintance spring up, let
him observe the habits of the other traveller, discovering a few of his
weak points and some of his good ones, and then he wishes to ask,
"Where do you hail from? Whither are you bound?"
Therefore, having encountered three fairly good-looking, jovial,
well-disposed young fellows amid the solitudes of a Maine forest,
having spent some eventful hours in their company, learning how they
behaved in certain emergencies, it is but natural that the reader should
wish to know their ordinary occupations, with their reasons for
venturing into these wilds, and the goal they wish to reach, before he
journeys with them farther.
Just at present, being fast asleep, dreaming, and--if I must say
it--snoring like troopers, upon their mattresses of pine boughs, they are
unable to give any information about themselves. But the friend who
has been authorized to record their travels will be happy to satisfy all
reasonable curiosity.
To begin, then, with the "boss" of the party, Cyrus Garst, the writer
would say that he is a student of Harvard University, and a brainy,
energetic, robust son of America. Among his college classmates he is
regarded as a bit of a hero; for, in spite of his comparative youth, he is
an enterprising traveller and a veteran camper, whose camp-fire has
blazed in some of the wildest solitudes of his native land. For his hobby
is natural history, and his playground the "forest primeval," where he
studies American animals amid the lonely passes which they choose for
their lairs and beats.
Every year when Harvard's learned halls are closed for the long
summer vacation,--sometimes at other seasons too,--he starts off on a
trip to a wilderness region, with his knapsack on his back, his rifle on
his shoulder, and often carrying his camera as well.
Once in a while he has been accompanied by a bosom friend or two.
More frequently he has gone alone, hiring the services of a professional
guide accustomed to the locality he visits. Now, such a guide is the
indispensable figure in every woodland trip. He is expected to supply

the main part of his employer's camp "kit"; namely, a tent or some
shelter to sleep under, cooking utensils, axes, etc., as well as a boat or
canoe if such be required. And this son of the forest, whose foot can
make a bee-line to its destination through the densest wooded maze, is
not only leader, but cook and general-utility man in camp as well. The
guide must be equally grand-master of paddle, rifle, and frying-pan.
For these tireless woodland heroes Cyrus Garst has a general
admiration. He has always agreed with them famously--save on one
point; and he has never had to shorten his wanderings for fear of
lengthening their fees. For Cyrus has a millionnaire father in the Back
Bay of Boston, who is disposed to indulge his whims.
The one point of variance is this: while all guides admire young Garst
as a crack shot with a rifle, he frequently dumfounds them by letting
slip stunning chances at game, big and little. They call him "a queer
specimen sportsman,"--understanding little his love for the wild
offspring of the woods,--because he never uses his gun save when the
bareness of his larder or the peril of his own life or his chum's demands
it.
Nevertheless, feeling the need of fresh meat, the naturalist was for the
moment hotly exasperated because his English comrade, Neal Farrar,
missed even a poor chance at a buck during the midnight excursion on
Squaw Pond.
His friends are proud of stating that up to the present Cyrus had
proceeded well in his friendly acquaintance with wild creatures, his
desire being to study their habits when alive rather than to pore over
their anatomy when dead. And he has always reaped a plentiful harvest
of fun during his trips, declaring that he has "the pull over fellows who
go into