“I don’t look at it in that way at all,” I said tartly. “And for heaven’s sake make up your mind to the inevitable and think no more about it.”
The men returned soon after with a basket full of trout and Mr. Van Worden fried them for supper. I don’t think I ever eat anything quite so good as those trout.
“He beats the cars, cookin’,” observed our chief guide, and Mr. Van Worden looked as pleased as if he had made a million in Wall Street.
After supper the guides built a high fire of great logs, and we all sat about and the men “spun yarns” of the days when the panther and the bear roamed the woods, and finished with stories of the beautiful red deer that alone claims the forest to-day. Of course the men smoked, and we were all very happy and comfortable until we went to bed. Mr. N. sat as close to me as he decently could, and—I will confess to you, Polly—under the encouragement of the shadows which covered a part of me and all of him he held my hand. I could not struggle—well——
About ten the men all marched up the hill in single file, singing, and we had the camp to ourselves for a half hour. We took off our boots, corsets and blouses, put on dressing sacks, tied our heads up in silk handkerchiefs, and our night toilet was complete. Miss Page had evidently made up her mind to accept the situation, but she was so manifestly uncomfortable that I tied nearly all of her face up in her handkerchief and tucked her away in the corner with the blanket up to her nose. She turned her back upon us and regarded the chinks of the bark wall in silent misery. Mr. Van Worden had brought three extra pairs of socks and these he had directed us to pull over our stockings as the night would grow very cold.
We had been in bed nearly twenty minutes and had already learned something of its hardness when the men returned.
“Now,” said Opp, “you must all lie on the same side and when one of you wants to turn over be sure to sing out and then we’ll all turn over together.”
His was the only remark. The other men pulled off their boots and crawled into bed without a word, looking rather sheepish, and ostentatiously refraining from glancing in our direction. Men are certainly more modest than women in certain conditions, and Mrs. Meredith Jones and I almost laughed out loud, especially as the other guide went to bed with his hat on!
For about a half hour we were as quiet as the sardines we must have looked. Then my side—the one I was lying on—began to ache from my neck to my heel, and from the numerous sighs and restless jerks I inferred that we all were affected in the same way. At all events Opp “sang out,” “Heave over, hey?” and we all turned like a well-regulated machine. I whispered to Miss Page but she would not answer me.
It was just after that we became conscious that the temperature was about ninety. The fire was not three feet in front of us and blazing more violently every moment. I had been endeavouring to forget my discomfort in watching the black masses of the tree-tops thrown by the blaze into extraordinary relief against the dulled sky and tarnished stars, when I heard Mr. Van Worden whisper fiercely,