So we supped, reclined upon our couch of spruce-twigs.  In our good cheer we pitied the Eft of Katahdin:  he might sneer, but he was supperless.  We were grateful to Nature for the grand mountain, for the fair and sylvan woods, for the lovely river and what it had yielded us.

By the time we had finished our flaky fare and sipped our chocolate from the Magdalena, Night announced herself,—­Night, a jealous, dark lady, eclipsed and made invisible all her rivals, that she might solely possess us.  Night’s whispers lulled us.  The rippling river, the rustling leaves, the hum of insects grew more audible; and these are gentle sounds that prove wide quietude in Nature, and tell man that the burr and buzz in his day-laboring brain have ceased, and he had better be breathing deep in harmony.  So we disposed ourselves upon the fragrant couch of spruce-boughs, and sank slowly and deeper into sleep, as divers sink into the thick waters down below, into the dreamy waters far below the plunge of sunshine.

By-and-by, as the time came for rising to the surface again, and the mind began to be half conscious of facts without it, as the diver may half perceive light through thinning strata of sea, there penetrated through my last layers of slumber a pungent odor of wetted embers.  It was raining quietly.  Drip was the pervading sound, as if the rain-drops were counting aloud the leaves of the forest.  Evidently a resolute and permanent wetting impended.  On rainy days one does not climb Katahdin.  Instead of rising by starlight, breakfasting by gray, and starting by rosy dawn, it would be policy to persuade night to linger long into the hours of a dull day.  When daylight finally came, dim and sulky, there was no rivalry among us which should light the fire.  We did not leap, but trickled slowly forth into the inhospitable morning, all forlorn.  Wet days in camp try “grit.”  “Clear grit” brightens more crystalline, the more it is rained upon; sham grit dissolves into mud and water.

Yankees, who take in pulverized granite with every breath of their native dust, are not likely to melt in a drizzle.  We three certainly did not.  We reacted stoutly against the forlorn weather, unpacking our internal stores of sunshine, as a camel in a desert draws water from his inner tank when outer water fails.  We made the best of it.  A breakfast of trout and trimmings looks nearly as well and tastes nearly as well in a fog as in a glare:  that we proved by experience at Camp Katahdin.

We could not climb the mountain dark and dim; we would not be idle:  what was to be done?  Much.  Much for sport and for use.  We shouldered the axe and sallied into the dripping forest.  Only a faint smoke from the smouldering logs curled up among the branches of the yellow birch over camp.  We wanted a big smoke, and chopped at the woods for fuel.  Speaking for myself, I should say that our wood-work was ill done.  Iglesias smiled at my axe-handling, and Cancut at his, as chopping we sent chips far and wide.