and beautiful, and the sun, in a blaze of red and
orange grandeur, displayed the world in all its rugged primeval
beauty. The travellers had reached Lake Wonakapow, a widening of the
river, where the waters were smooth and no current opposed their
progress. For the first time in many days the sails were hoisted, and,
released from the hard work, the men sat back to enjoy the rest, while
a fair breeze sent them up the lake.

"'Tis fine t' have a spell from th' trackin'," remarked Ed as he
lighted his pipe.

"Aye, 'tis that," assented Dick, "an' we been makin' rare good time
wi' this bad weather. We're three days ahead o' my reckonin'."

How beautiful it was! The water, deep and dark, leading far away,
every rugged hill capped with snow, and the white peaks sparkling in
the sunshine. A loon laughed at them as they passed, and an invisible
wolf on a mountainside sent forth its long weird cry of defiance.

They sailed quietly on for an hour or two. Finally Ed pointed out to
Bob a small log shack standing a few yards back from the shore,
saying:

"An' there's my tilt. Here I leaves un."

Bill Campbell was at the tiller, and the boat was headed to a strip of
sandy beach near the tilt. Presently they landed. Ed's things were
separated from the others and taken ashore, and all hands helped him
carry them up to the tilt.

There was no window in the shack and the doorway was not over four
feet high. Within was a single room about six by eight feet in size,
with a rude couch built of saplings, running along two sides, upon
which spruce boughs, used the previous year and now dry and dead, were
strewn for a bed. The floor was of earth. The tilt contained a sheet
iron stove similar to the one Bob had brought, but no other furniture
save a few cooking utensils. The round logs of which the rough
building was constructed, were well chinked between them with moss,
making it snug and warm.

[Illustration]

This was where Ed kept his base of supplies. His trail began here and
ran inland and nearly northward for some distance to a lake whose
shores it skirted, and then, taking a swing to the southwest, came
back to the river again and ended where Dick's began, and the two
trappers had a tilt there which they used in common. Between these
tilts were four others at intervals of twelve to fifteen miles, for
night shelters, the distance between them constituting a day's work,
the trail from end to end being about seventy miles long