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.