than a palace.

The natural mattress was wide enough to accommodate three. The boughs
were laid down in rows with the under side up, and overlapped each
other. To be sure, an occasional twig might poke a sleeper's ribs, but
what mattered that? To the English boys especially--having the charm of
entire novelty--it was a matchless bed, wholesome, restful, and rich
with balsamic odors hitherto unknown.

The trio were stupidly tired; but on the American continent no happier
or healthier youths could have been found.

It had, indeed, been a night big with experiences; and there was one
still to come, which, to Neal Farrar at any rate, was as novel as the
rest. He had thrown himself upon his bough couch, too weary to offer
anything but the gladness of his heart for worship, when Cyrus touched
his arm.

"Look there!" he said. "If a fellow could see that without feeling some
sensations go through him which he never felt before, he wouldn't be
worth much!"

He pointed through the open door of the hut at the sky above the
clearing, over which was stealing a pearly hue of dawn, shot with a
tinge of rosy light, like the fire in the heart of an opal.

This made a royal canopy over the towering head of Old Squaw
Mountain,--near by now and plainly visible,--which had not yet lost its
starry diadem, though the gems were paling one by one. The shoulders of
the peak wore a mantle of purple, and the forest which clothed its bulk