The lodge was much the worse for the irreverent usage of Tom and his strenuous crew. They cooked and ate and slept there, and in the evenings, and on rainy days, they played cards there.
They had felled trees enough to build seven cabins, and five of them were completed; they had a real woodland atmosphere about them, a pioneer look, which was lacking in the sumptuous lodge. A landing place of logs had been built at the lake and several rowboats floated ready for use. Tom told me they had carted the planking for these all the way from Keeseville in, or on, his Ford.
“And that’s old Hogback,” he told us, as he and Brent and I strolled out after supper while the others lingered in the lodge. “Wait till you see it in the daylight. You can climb up it if you want to. Some mountain, huh?”
“I don’t want to,” Brent said.
“See the hermit,” laughed Tom.
“I thought you’d have something like that,” Brent said. “It’s getting so there are no mountains left without hermits; they’re pushing in everywhere. They’re going to cause a lot of congestion if it keeps up.”
“Well, I don’t know about the hermit,” Tom laughed, “but I can promise you there are bears and wildcats up there.”
“Well then we won’t need to go up to find out,” Brent said. “As long as you’re sure.”
“Yes, and rattlesnakes too,” Tom said. “I found the tracks of a pretty big lynx one day. Well, you can see we’ve been working. Guess we better go in and talk to the bunch, hey?”
We went into the lodge where four of the young men were already playing cards at the carved library table which I suppose must always have been used as a dining table. The other fellow, the one they called Rivers, was starting a fire in the big chimney-place. It was a cozy, pleasant scene.