It was a delightful hour for schooling, and Wayland would have been content to sit there till morning listening; but the air bit, and at last the Supervisor asked: "Have you made your bed? If you have, turn in. I shall get you out early to-morrow." As he saw the bed, he added: "I see you've laid out a bed of boughs. That shows how Eastern you are. We don't do that out here. It's too cold in this climate, and it's too much work. You want to hug the ground--if it's dry." The weary youth went to his couch with a sense of timorous elation, for he had never before slept beneath the open sky. Over him the giant fir--tall as a steeple--dropped protecting shadow, and looking up he could see the firelight flickering on the wide-spread branches. His bed seemed to promise all the dreams and restful drowse which the books on outdoor life had described, and close by in her tiny little canvas house he could hear the girl in low-voiced conversation with her sire. All conditions seemed right for slumber, and yet slumber refused to come! After the Supervisor had rolled himself in the blanket, long after all sounds had ceased in the tent, there still remained for the youth a score of manifold excitations to wakefulness. Down on the lake the muskrats and beavers were at their work. Nocturnal birds uttered uncanny, disturbing cries. Some animal with stealthy crackling tread was ranging the hillside, and the roar of the little fall, so far from lulling him to sleep--as he had imagined it would--stimulated his imagination till he could discern in it the beat of scurrying wings and the patter of pernicious padded feet. "If I am appalled by the wilderness now, what would it seem to me were I alone!" he whispered. Then, too, his bed of boughs discovered unforeseen humps and knobs, and by the time he had adjusted himself to their discomfort, it became evident that his blankets were both too thin and too short. And the gelid air sweeping down from the high places submerged him as if with a flood of icy water. In vain he turned and twisted within his robes. No sooner were his shoulders covered and comfortable than his hip-bones began to ache. Later on the blood of his feet congealed, and in the effort to wrap them more closely, he uncovered his neck and shoulders. The frost became a wolf, the night an oppressor. "I must have a different outfit," he decided. And then thinking that this was but early autumn, he added: "What will it be a month later?" He began to doubt his ability to measure up to the heroic standard of a forest patrol. The firelight flickered low, and a prowling animal daringly sniffed about the camp, pawing at the castaway fragments of the evening meal. The youth was rigid with fear. "Is it a bear? Shall I call the Supervisor?" he asked himself.