What is that rustling noise outside the tent? Probably some small
creature, a squirrel or a rabbit. Rabbit stew would be good for
breakfast. But it sounds louder now, almost loud enough to be a
fox,--there are no wolves left in the Adirondacks, or at least only a
very few. That is certainly quite a heavy footstep prowling around the
provision-box. Could it be a panther,--they step very softly for their
size,--or a bear perhaps? Sam Dunning told about catching one in a trap
just below here. (Ah, my boy, you will soon learn that there is no spot
in all the forests created by a bountiful Providence so poor as to be
without its bear story.) Where was the rifle put? There it is, at the
foot of the tent-pole. Wonder if it is loaded?

"Waugh-ho! Waugh-ho-o-o-o!"

The boy springs from his blankets like a cat, and peeps out between the
tent-flaps. There sits Enos, in the shelter of a leaning tree by the
fire, with his head thrown back and a bottle poised at his mouth. His
lonely eye is cocked up at a great horned owl on the branch above him.
Again the sudden voice breaks out:

"Whoo! whoo! whoo cooks for you all?"

Enos puts the bottle down, with a grunt, and creeps off to his tent.

"De debbil in dat owl," he mutters. "How he know I cook for dis camp?
How he know 'bout dat bottle? Ugh!"

There are hundreds of pictures that flash into light as the boy goes on
his course, year after year, through the woods. There is the luxurious
camp on Tupper's Lake, with its log cabins in the spruce-grove, and its