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shelter sturdy enough to stand against the bear or possible other menaces. But of course he expected to be rescued long before permanent fortification was required.
    By the time he had accumulated a waist-high pile of firewood that was of respectable quality and shingled its topmost layer with the birch bark, the afternoon had seemingly become evening, so dark was the sky when seen from the woods where he had decided his fuel supply would be less exposed to the elements than on the beach. The same could be said for himself, except for the possible greater danger of the bear when among the trees, which was presumably where the animal lived.
    With the rising of the wind, he began to doubt the validity of his prior theory that flames could resist foul weather if burning fiercely enough. His morale had been strengthened by the successes with the magnifying mirror and the make-shift axheads, but it fell now as he returned to the beach and saw the whitecaps on the lake and felt the unobstructed force of the gusts that swept in from the water.
    All at once the rain appeared without an introductory drop, great angry sheets of it, instantly transforming the fire into cold charcoal, soaking him and his miserable possessions, which he frantically gathered up for the dash into the woods, but, swept by the great broom of wind, he did not know what he had and what he left behind. That protection could be found in the trees was an illusion: the branches served only to channel more water onto him while others, tormented by the wind, whipped his face. How did bears and other wild beasts cope with rough weather? Probably in cozy caves. But the nearby terrain was flat, and he did not dare explore farther afield at this moment, lest he lose the lake and supply of fresh water as well as a situation more easily seen from the air.
    He found rocks to secure the birch-bark tiles with which he had covered the woodpile, but before he could get them in place all the bark had been blown away and the stacked wood was drenched. In searching for a place of refuge in the gathering darkness he lost the rest of his goods, but the clothes had been soaked and the picnic hamper was empty and torn and the fishing-rod case was useless.
    At last he stumbled and sprawled, but in so doing he found himself in a place of shelter inadvertently created by natural forces: an old tree trunk, fallen at an angle, against which other dead materials had collected, branches and leaves, on the leeward side of which accumulation a desperate man could burrow. He cowered therein throughout a long night in which the wind grew ever more furious in voice and act, bellowing, detonating, felling timber, increasing the volume of rain until the earth had become storm-tossed ocean.
    He dug as deeply as he could under the log, heaping himself with forest litter. It was far from being dry but warmer than his bed of the previous night, and he had no fear of the bear in such weather. After a while he was even able to sleep.

4
    C REWS AWOKE AT FIRST LIGHT, BUT HE HAD been often briefly conscious throughout the hours of darkness. The storm had exhausted its rage and the winds had blown away, leaving the air still full of water, some dripping from the trees, more falling as a steady soaking rain which felt benevolent with the memory of the tumult of the night before. The naturally created lean-to had provided some small protection or anyway the illusion thereof: there was a distinction, but not one that mattered under prevailing circumstances.
    Without the sun there was no means by which to tell time, and no way of drying the wet clothing that was being further soaked by the falling rain. He could not make fire for any purpose whatever till the sky cleared. No aircraft would be flying in this weather, so there was no point in going back to the beach, where he no longer maintained a campsite. He had no home at the moment but the dead leaves and brush that had collected on the side of the fallen log