A dark bank of clouds had risen in the west, and the wind began to blow a little; it was not quite as pleasant as on the previous evening. In the course of an hour our dinner was ready. Ellen had gathered a quart of nuts, and Willis came in with another partridge. It was not a good night for shooting, he said; and when he went inside our cabin to set aside the gun, he privately told Addison and me, that he had heard a dog bark off in the woods, to the west of the opening. Somehow it made us feel uneasy to think that some person, or persons, might be hanging about the place, though they had not shown themselves very evilly disposed toward us, having merely taken a loaf or two of bread and some eggs. Still there was no knowing who they were, or what their intentions might be. The table was rigged up and we sat down to it as before. The fried _venison_ was good and went well with our potatoes; and we had an egg apiece. But Kate's corn meal mush was the best dish, for we had plenty of butter and sugar to garnish it; and we also toasted some cheese. The sky had grown wholly overcast; and by the time we had finished our dinner, night came on. We had still to collect wood for a camp-fire; and all four of us boys set about this task at once and also carried armfuls of dry pine from a stub, a little way off, into our cabin to have in the morning for our fire, in case of rain. The wind was blowing and the air felt chilly and raw. There was not much pleasure in sitting out of doors, even before a fire; so we at length carried our benches into the girls' cabin and placed them around, just inside the open door, where the firelight shone in pleasantly. It was much more comfortable there than out in the wind. The smoke also drifted into our own cabin a good deal, but here we were quite out of it. Nell produced her pailful of hazel nuts, and with this rather late dessert for our dinner, we whiled away an hour or more, Thomas or Addison going out now and then to tend the fire and keep it blazing brightly. "What shall it be to-morrow," Theodora at length said; "fishing, or hazel-nutting?" "Fishing in the morning and hazel-nutting in the afternoon will be a good plan, I guess," Addison remarked,--when, as he spoke, we heard a rather strange sound off in the woods. It was the first wild note of any kind which had come to our ears during the evening; the inhabitants of the forest seemed not to be musically inclined that night. "I would like to know what made that noise," Tom said. "That wasn't a bear, nor a 'screamer.'" We sat listening and pretty soon heard it again, a peculiar, long-drawn-out, hollow note. "It doesn't sound like an animal's cry," said Addison. "It is more like a noise I have heard made by blowing through some big sea-shell." "Not very likely to be sea-shells up here in the woods," remarked Theodora. "Are there really any Indians in the 'great woods?'" I asked. "I think not," said Addison.