"When you lack information on any matter connected with canoeing," said the Cook, "come to me." The Cook emptied his third cup (pint) of coffee, unrolled a pack in his boat, and displayed a piece of stout sheeting, five yards long and two and three-quarter yards wide, with four rope loops at each end for tent pins, and a row of button-holes, a foot apart, along each edge. He also displayed two triangular pieces of the same material, at the bases of each of which were three loops for pins, and along the other two sides a row of buttons. [Illustration: The Cook's Tent.] "Button these together properly," said he, "set the whole affair up on poles, and cross pole, or across a rope strung tightly between two trees, and you have a larger and better ventilated tent than the one I left in the lake; it won't weigh half as much, either. Except in very cold weather or driving rain, the end pieces will not be necessary. Indeed, it can be set over a canoe, so as to cover all the open portion of the boat." [Illustration: The Cook's Tent.] The whole supper table gazed admiringly, until the Commodore asked, "Why have the holes, instead of the buttons, on the main piece?" "So that you may affix the ends either from the inside or outside. The latter is the easier way, but occasionally the wind blowing from the front, will come in very freely between the fastenings outside, so that the canoeist who drops asleep with a head full of pleasant dreams, will awake with a head full of neuralgia." "And if it rains, what is to prevent this tent from leaking like a sieve, and distributing shower baths impartially among the clean and the unclean?" "Two things--a steep pitch or a neat coat of oil," said the Cook. "The water-proof of the pudding is in the eating," remarked the Commodore, who had begun to yawn. "Set the tent at once." The tent was set on a line between two trees, the front remaining open, and half an hour later there lay within it four men who were beginning fully to realize how delicious weariness may become, when it is earned by the body instead of the brain. With sand for mattresses, and a rubber blanket each for sheets, they slept more soundly than they had ever done at home upon springs and between linen. The only visitations they experienced were heavenly ones. Venus glided past the open front, but saw no one there over whom her fastidious gaze cared to linger. Saturn peeped suspiciously in, but passed on contentedly, assured that in the presence of such sound sleepers his rings were as safe as if they were Indian Rings at Washington. Mars glared in with his great red face, but the quartette had been all day on the water, under an unfamiliar sun, so there were four fiery faces to Mars' one, and the blazing old fellow went off in a huff and got behind a little cloud to hide his mortification. V. SUNSHINE AND SHADOW.