Chapter V.
COMFORT IN A LOG CABIN.
The pain of this farewell did not long cloud their faces. Tug and Jim had had no luncheon, and were growing anxious for something to eat. Down at the mouth of the river stood a small cabin, often occupied in early spring by the sportsmen who went for a day's duck-shooting in the great marshes that spread right and left on both sides of the stream. It was buried among big cottonwood and sycamore trees, and was pretty snug. Besides, it had a fireplace, into which somebody had stuck a long iron bolt pulled out of some bit of wreckage on the beach, and which served as a great convenience in the rude cooking of the sportsmen.
At this cabin our party proposed to spend the first night. They thought it would be an easy letting down from sleeping in their beds at home to the tenting they feared they might have to do afterwards. Katy had been the one to suggest this, and Tug had earnestly supported the idea.
"Things don't seem so hard when they come upon you gradually, as the kind-hearted man said when he cut off his dog's tail a little piece at a time, so the pup wouldn't mind it."
The sun was just disappearing straight up the river behind them as the cabin came in sight; and before its half-closed door
"'All bloody lay the untrodden snow,'"
as Kate exclaimed, misquoting her "Hohenlinden" to suit the red glow of the rich evening light.
"Hurrah for supper!" screamed Jim; and with an extra spurt they swung the boat up to the bank.
A little sweeping with a broom made of an alder branch cleared the cabin of the snow that had blown into the cracks and fallen down the mud-and-stone chimney. This done, Aleck called to them to listen to his first orders, which he had written down in a note-book, and now read as follows: