by beds of velvety green moss--huge green winding
sheets, under which lay the bodies of many giant
pines and hemlocks. The shelter was made of bark
and bedded down with boughs of sweet-balsam. Outside,
on a birch sapling, supported by two forked
sticks, hung a rusty kettle. Beneath the rude spit,
half-hidden by the growth of the summer, lay the
embers of the abandoned camp-fires that had warmed
and comforted Hank and his companions the preceding
winter.

Oliver raked the charred embers from under the
tangled vines that hid them, while Margaret peeled
the bark from a silver-birch for kindling. Soon a
curl of blue smoke mounted heavenward, hung suspended
over the tree-tops, and then drifted away in
scarfs of silver haze dimming the forms of the giant
trunks.

Our young enthusiast watched the Diaz of a wood
interior turn slowly into a Corot, and with a cry of
delight was about to unstrap his own and Margaret's
sketching-kits, when the sun was suddenly blotted
out by a heavy cloud, and the quick gloom of a
mountain-storm chilling the sunlit vista to a dull
slate gray settled over the forest. Oliver walked
over to the brook for a better view of the sky, and
came back bounding over the moss-covered logs as
he ran. There was not a moment to lose if they
would escape being drenched to the skin.