Jed Sanborn was a character well known to the people of the district surrounding the lakes. He was a hunter and trapper and had been all his life. He was a bachelor, with no known relatives, and lived in a little cabin on the mountainside, two miles from Lake Cameron. The boys had met him a number of times and knew him to be a good shot and a good-humored individual.
"Hullo, Jed, where are you bound?" sang out Snap, as the hunter drew closer in his canoe.
"Thought I'd find you up here, boys," was the answer. "Have a good time last night?"
"No; we had a beastly time," answered Shep.
"Rained hard, didn't it? Where are you bound now?"
"We were going to look around the lake, that's all. We want to find a good camping-out spot."
"Folks down at Fairview said you were going to Lake Cameron."
"So we were, but Mr. Andrew Felps came along and drove us away."
"And after we had built a cabin, too," put in Giant.
"Huh! that's just like him," responded Jed Sanborn, as he bumped alongside of the rowboat with his canoe "He told me I couldn't hunt or fish around that lake either."