don't exactly want to get a chill before morning, do you, and be compelled to sleep at the Cottage till the end of the camp?" 

 This idea struck Peter as sound; he fell to, therefore, with a will. Jan came along, too, having first set one of the boys' dixies on the now blazing camp-fire.  "Suppose you'll want your supper after this, won't you?" she asked. 

 "Rather, I should say so," but the two boys were too busy to talk much. Already the night shelter was beginning to look quite professional. One of the scout-staves was laid against and bound to the trunk of a straight young tree; the framework thus formed was thatched very closely with leafy boughs and bracken, and the whole bivouac was complete. 

 "It's simply perfect," remarked Jan, surveying the results of their labours with glowing eyes. 

 "And perfectly simple," added Peter; but Robin, as Captain of the campers, was anxious to set them both to work again as soon as possible. 

 "We've got the temporary shelter pitched all right," he said, "with its back away from the wind; but we'll want a trench dug all round it. Suppose there's heavy rain in the night, and we get flooded out! Not that I think there will be, but we'll be prepared." 

 "Now I see why you would have the camp on a slope, old chap," said Peter, coming up. "The trench will carry the water straight down to the river. Jolly neat idea." 

 The digging of the small ditch took the rest of the boys' energies; about three inches deep they made it. Meanwhile Jan installed herself as camp-cook, and began preparations for the first meal of all. After a flying visit to Island Cottage she returned with a saucepan, a jug of milk, and a loaf of bread, as well as three new-laid eggs. The milk was boiled in the saucepan, and the eggs were cooked in the dixie of hot water. Jan was trying her best to make three slices of rather smoky toast, and burning her cheeks badly in the endeavour, when the boys—their labours over for a time—approached the camp-fire. 

 Suppers are nearly always welcome; but this particular supper was voted the rippingest on record. And, afterwards, as the day slowly faded to dusk, the three sat in the firelight saying very little but enjoying, every one of them, the magic of the late summer evening in their own particular way. The spell was broken at last by a little shiver from Jan, and Robin jumped up. "Here, it's time we fetched a rug or 

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