THE CABIN ON THE ISLAND.
"From the top of that high point of rocks you can see the whole of it. I don't believe it is more than a mile up to the farther end, and not half that down to the other. The island is shaped something like a dumb-bell, only one end is a good deal bigger than the other. We are on the little end here."
"Well, Youngster, you're quite a geographer; but we can't stop to talk about it now. Let's go back as quickly as we can, and bring part of our goods over this afternoon; don't you think that's best?"
"Oh, yes." And twenty minutes later, rosy and panting, Katy astonished the sleepy Tug by rushing into camp, followed closely, not by wild beasts, as he thought would be the case, but by both the brothers she had outsped.
"It's so good!" she exclaimed, catching her breath, "to feel something besides slippery ice under your feet! Now, what shall we take first?"
By hard work and little resting the coming of twilight found them established in their new home. The last journey had been made after the bedding, by Tug and Aleck, while Jim and Katy cleared the snow all away from the cabin door and off the bending roof, straightened up the rickety old stove, and set a fire going. By the time the larger boys came back, raising a whoop far up the hillside as they saw the smoke curling up between the hemlocks, the old hut was warm, and the tin cover of the little iron pot was dancing, in its effort to hold back the escaping steam.
"Ugh!" said Tug, as he pushed the door open and threw down his bundle of blankets; "I'm as hungry as a wolf!"
"If you think you can wait fifteen minutes, Mr. Montgomery, you'll have a bee-yutiful supper. Can you do it?"
"I 'low I can. I ain't a epi—epi—What d'ye call it?"