“As good as we’ll be apt to find, I guess, if we can only scare up some wood for the fire,” Bob agreed.
“All right then, I’ll do the digging if you’ll hustle the wood,” Jack proposed, and taking a shovel from the pack on the toboggan, he began work, while Bob started off with the ax to see what he could find in the way of fuel. Fortune favored him, for before he had taken fifty steps he came upon a dead pine which had blown over and was only partially covered by the snow. He at once set to work hacking off the brittle branches and throwing them in a pile to one side.
“Enough wood here to last a week,” he thought, as the pile grew larger with astonishing rapidity.
After a half hour’s hard work he judged that he had enough for the night and picking up as much as he could carry he started back. Meanwhile Jack had not been idle and by the time Bob returned with the wood he had nearly finished a trench directly in front of the big pine and extending between the two saplings. The trench was about four feet wide and nearly three times as long.
“Found some, did you?” Jack asked as Bob appeared.
“Sure. What did you think I went after? I see you’ve been pretty busy yourself and by the time you get the house done I’ll have plenty of wood here,” Bob declared as he started back for a second load.
He made several trips while Jack was completing his part, and when the latter finally stepped out of the trench a large pile of dead branches as well as a number of pieces of the trunk lay close by. The two small trees stood about six feet from the big pine, and to each of them they tied a corner of a large strip of canvass, about three feet from the surface of the snow. The other two corners they fastened to sticks driven well down in the snow close to the foot of the pine, so that about six feet of the trench was covered with a sloping canvass roof.
“Now let’s get the fire going and then for a good hot supper. That cold lunch didn’t even fill up the corners,” Jack declared.
In the uncovered end of the trench, which was nearly four feet deep, Bob started a small fire, while Jack undid the pack enough to get out the cooking utensils and the provisions. It was now nearly dark and the bright light from the crackling fire cast fantastic shadows as the boys moved about their work. In a surprisingly short time a meal of bacon and eggs, flapjacks and coffee was ready. Enough, as Bob laughingly declared, “to satisfy a dozen ordinary men.” But there is no better appetizer than strenuous exercise in the clear cold spruce-laden air of Northern Maine, and in spite of appearances he found that Jack had used excellent judgment in his estimation of the proper amount of food, for, as he declared, after they had finished, “not enough remained to feed a good-sized mosquito.”
After “doing the dishes” they brought in the rest of the wood which Bob had cut and then turned their attention to preparations for the night. Over the ground beneath the canvass roof they spread a thick layer of spruce boughs, covering them with a thick woolen blanket, making a bed, as Jack declared, “fit for any king.”