them and notched
them, and rolled or pried them up into place. At times whole days would
be spent on that further slope of the hillside and Uncle Jeb, busy with
preparations for the first arrivals, could not see him at all, only hear
the sound of his axe, and sometimes the pulleys creaking. He did not go
down into camp for lunch as a rule, and spent but a few minutes eating
the snack which he had brought with him.

At last there came a day when five cabins stood upon that isolated
hilltop which overlooked the main body of the camp, and Tom Slade,
leaning upon his axe like Daniel Boone, could look down over the more
closely built area, with its more or less straight rows of cabins and
shacks, and its modern pavilion. Five cabins where there had been only
three. They made a pleasant, secluded little community up there, far
removed from the hustle and bustle of camp life. "No wonder they like it
up here," he mused; "the camp is getting to be sort of like a village.
They'll have a lot of fun up here, those two troops, and it's a kind of
a good turn how I bring them together. Nobody loses anything, this way."

True--nobody but Tom Slade. His hands were covered with blisters so that
he must wind his handkerchief around one of them to ease the chafing of
the axe handle. His hair was streaky and dishevelled and needed cutting,
so that he looked not unlike one of those hardy pioneers of old. And
now, with some of the rough material for the last cabin strewn about him
and with but two weeks in which to finish the work, he was confronted
with a new handicap. The old pain caused by the wound in his arm
returned, and the crippled muscles rebelled against this excessive
usage. Well, that was just a little obstacle in the long trail; he would
put the burden on the other arm. "I'm glad I got two," he said.

He tried to calculate the remainder of the work in relation to the time
he had to do it. For of one thing he was resolved, and that was to be
finished and gone before those two troops arrived, the troop from the
west and his own troop from Bridgeboro. They were to find these six
cabins waiting for them. Everything would be all right....

He mopped his brow off, and rewound the handkerchief about his sore
hand. The fingers smarted and tingled and he wriggled them to obtain a
little relief from their cramped condition. He buttoned up his flannel
shirt which he always left wide open when he worked, and laid his axe
away in one of t