Amesbury was cooking breakfast by candlelight, and the room was filled with the odor of coffee and frying venison steak. Ahmik was getting his things ready, preparatory to leaving. The boys crawled drowsily from their sleeping bags.
“Good morning, fellows,” called Amesbury cheerily. “Too bad to get you out so early, but Ahmik and I’ll have to be going. Wash up; breakfast’s ready.”
“We’ll miss you terribly,” said Paul. “It’s going to be pretty lonely when you’re gone.”
“It’ll be good to know I’m missed,” Amesbury laughed. Then more soberly: “I tell you it’s good to have you chaps here. I’ll look forward every day I’m gone to getting back. When I’m alone I never care much whether I’m here or somewhere else. But now I’ve the pleasant anticipation before me of coming home to a jolly good day or two each week with you fellows. Your coming here means a lot to me.”
“You’re mighty good to say so. It was so splendid of you to bring us from the post!” declared Paul.
“You’ve got to earn your way, you know, and if you work hard you’ll earn a little money besides.”
With the first hint of gray dawn Amesbury and Ahmik donned their snowshoes, said adieu, and, each hauling his flat-sled, were quickly swallowed by the black shadows of the forest.
It was a marvelously beautiful day. The rising sun set the frost-clad trees and snow sparkling and scintillating, the atmosphere was clear and transparent, and it was altogether too entrancing out of doors for the lads to forego an excursion. They had become well inured to the severe cold, growing more intense with the lengthening January days, and shrank from it not at all.
“Let’s begin our trapping today,” Paul suggested. “It’s just too great to stick inside.”