Sweet is the charm of starlit sailing where no danger is.  And in days when the Munki Mannakens were foes of the pale-face, one might dash down rapids by night in the hurry of escape.  Now the danger was before, not pursuing.  We must camp before we were hurried into the first “rips” of the stream, and before night made bush-ranging and camp-duties difficult.

But these beautiful thickets of birch and alder along the bank, how to get through them?  We must spy out an entrance.  Spots lovely and damp, circles of ferny grass beneath elms offered themselves.  At last, as to patience always, appeared the place of wisest choice.  A little stream, the Ragmuff, entered the Penobscot.  “Why Ragmuff?” thought we, insulted.  Just below its mouth two spruces were propylaea to a little glade, our very spot.  We landed.  Some hunters had once been there.  A skeleton lodge and frame of poles for drying moose-hides remained.

Like skilful campaigners, we at once distributed ourselves over our work.  Cancut wielded the axe; I the match-box; Iglesias the batterie de cuisine.  Ragmuff drifted one troutling and sundry chubby chub down to nip our hooks.  We re-roofed our camp with its old covering of hemlock-bark, spreading over a light tent-cover we had provided.  The last glow of twilight dulled away; monitory mists hid the stars.

Iglesias, as chef, with his two marmitons, had, meanwhile, been preparing supper.  It was dark when he, the colorist, saw that fire with delicate touches of its fine brushes had painted all our viands to perfection.  Then, with the same fire stirred to illumination, and dashing masterly glows upon landscape and figures, the trio partook of the supper and named it sublime.

Here follows the carte of the Restaurant Ragmuff,—­woodland fare, a banquet simple, but elegant:—­

  POISSON.

  Truite.  Meunier.

  ENTREES.

  Porc frit au naturel. 
  Cotelettes d’Elan.

  ROTI.

  Tetrao Canadensis

  DESSERT

  Hard-Tack.  Fromage.

  VINS.

  Ragmuff blanc.  Penobscot mousseux. 
  The.  Chocolat de Bogota. 
  Petit verre de Cognac.

At that time I had a temporary quarrel with the frantic nineteenth century’s best friend, tobacco,—­and Iglesias, being totally at peace with himself and the world, never needs anodynes.  Cancut, therefore, was the only cloud-blower.

We two solaced ourselves with scorning civilization from our vantage-ground.  We were beyond fences, away from the clash of town-clocks, the clink of town-dollars, the hiss of town-scandals.  As soon as one is fairly in camp and has begun to eat with his fingers, he is free.  He and truth are at the bottom of a well,—­a hollow, fire-lighted cylinder of forest.  While the manly man of the woods is breathing Nature like an Amreeta draught, is it anything less than the summum bonum?