* * * * * Wednesday night was perfect--not a cloud in the sky, and a great half-moon to help them find their way. There was a spring breeze in the air, the kind that makes a great wood-fire of dry logs and pine needles about the most attractive thing on earth to a crowd of young savages. Far away to the westward Pike's Peak's hoary head was lifted into the sky, dimly lighted by the yellow rays of the moon. There was a faint odor of spring in the air, while the little mountain stream had not as yet given up its icy prattle. Little patches of snow still dotted the sides of the canyon, and here and there a crystal icicle sparkled from the end of a pine bough. It was a night of wonders for Willis. He had never felt the "call of the wild" so strongly and irresistibly as on that night. Every mountain crag seemed to be calling him, and in his fancy he thought the fir trees reached their gently-waving branches, beckoning him to come into the darkness and solitude. In spite of himself, his thoughts would wander to the Michigan homeland. He wondered if the ice had broken on the lake yet, and if the blossoms had begun to come in the old orchard, and if his grandmother had filled the incubator. He felt queer with so many strangers, yet not at all ill-at-ease, for he had lived a wholesome life in the out-of-doors, and the meaning of fear was almost unknown to him. As the fire was lighted and the wieners set to bake on the end of long, green willow sticks, he began to enter more completely into the merriment of the crowd.