plan for buying a motor-boat, with his hundred or some
odd precious dollars, and spending his lonely spare time in it, for the
balance of the summer, back in Bridgeboro. He was going to ask a girl he
knew, the _only_ girl he knew, to go out in it. And he was doubtful
whether she would go.

These, then, were his two big enterprises--finishing the third cabin and
taking "that girl" out in the motor-boat which he would buy with his two
Liberty Bonds. And away down deep in his heart he was haunted by doubts
as to both enterprises. Perhaps he would not succeed. He still had his
strong left arm, so far as the last cabin was concerned, and he could
work until he fell in his tracks. But the girl was a new kind of an
enterprise for poor Tom.

His plan went further than he had allowed any one to know.

Uncle Jeb, shrewd and gentle as he was saw all this and resolved that
Tom's plans, crazy or not, should not go awry. He would do a little
chopping and log hauling up on that hill next day. Old Uncle Jeb never
missed his aim and when he fixed his eye on the target of August first,
it meant business.

Then, the next morning, he was summoned by telegram to meet Mr. John
Temple in New York and discuss plans for the woods property.

So there you are again--Lucky Luke.

CHAPTER XIX

THE SPECTRE OF DEFEAT

So Tom worked on alone. He made his headquarters on the hill now, seldom
going down into the main body of the camp, and worked each day from
sunrise until it was too dark to see. Then he would build himself a
camp-fire and cook his simple meal of beans and coffee and toasted
crackers, and turn in early.

Every log for this last cabin had to be felled and trimmed of its
branches, and hauled singly up the hillside by means of the rope and
pulleys. Then it had to be notched and rolled into place, which was not
easy after the structure was two or three tiers high.

Building a log cabin is essentially a work for two. The logs which
flanked the doorway and the window had to be cut to special lengths.
The rough casings he made at night, after the more strenuous work of the
day was done, and this labor he performed by the light of a single
railroad lantern. The work of building the first two cabins had been
largely that of fitting together timbers already cut, and adjusting old
broken casings, but he was now in the midst of such a task as confronted
the indomitable woodsmen of old and he strove on with dogged
perseverance.