Later at night, however, when the fire has died down, and is no longer visible, one's forest neighbors will resume their usual occupations, and the wakeful camper may listen to the patter of hurrying footsteps, to the scratch of toe-nails on bark as a climber goes up or down a tree trunk, to the sniff of the inquisitive fellow who smells about the camp, to the chatter of the chap who talks to himself, to the loping or jumping noises, to the splashes in the brook, to the last despairing cry of some small animal as his life is being crushed out by his captor. A deer, softly stepping along his beaten path which leads down the valley to a pond where he goes every night for drink, for water plants, or just to wallow, may encounter a breeze bringing to his nostrils the human scent. He then will blow his bugle blast, which can be heard a mile. In such case the wakeful camper is never in doubt as to who spoke. The same is true when the owl booms out across the valley his eternal question, "Who?" No other bird or beast ever speaks in the same tone of voice. But most of the smaller noises of the forest night are subjects for speculation. One always instinctively tries to analyze and allocate each noise to its author. In this game an intimate knowledge of the habits of forest residents is useful, so that, at the camp breakfast in the morning, one may confidently assert that so and so visited the camp last night! When, as sometimes happened, both Bige and I were wakeful at the same time, the breakfast hour was made interesting by differing opinions, and discussions over the habits and identity of our noisy neighbors. There are, of course, many birds and a few animals who sleep at night, and are met with only in the daytime. These were not considered in our discussions. One night at Muskrat City, both Bige and I were suddenly awakened by most unusual sounds coming from the direction of the hillside across the valley. Bige sprang up to a sitting posture, exclaiming, "Sufferin' Cats! Did you hear that noise?" I did; and expressed the opinion that "the suffering of the cats was acute." Immediately, the sounds were repeated, if possible louder than before. It would be difficult accurately to describe those sounds. We were reminded of disputes we had heard, in the back yard, between two Thomas cats, whose wordy arguments over their respective claims to "Mariah" often ended in scratching and hair-pulling. I, however, never met any tom cat who could produce one-tenth of the volume of noise that came across that valley.