He stopped at noon at a settler’s lonely house, occupied by Mike Conlin, a friendly Irishman.  Jim took the man aside and related his plans.  Mike entered at once upon the project with interest and sympathy, and Jim knew that he could trust him wholly.  It was arranged that Jim should return to Mike the evening before the proposed descent upon Tom Buffum’s establishment, and sleep.  The following evening Mike’s horse would be placed at Jim’s disposal, and he and the Benedicts were to drive through during the night to the point on the river where he would leave his boat.  Mike was to find his horse there and take him home.

Having accomplished his business, Jim went on, and before the twilight had deepened into night, he found himself briskly paddling up the stream, and at ten o’clock he had drawn his little boat up the beach, and embraced Turk, his faithful dog, whom he had left, not only to take care of his cabin, but to provide for himself.  He had already eaten his supper, and five minutes after he entered his cabin he and his dog were snoring side by side in a sleep too profound to be disturbed, even by the trumpet of old Tilden.

CHAPTER V.

In which, Jim enlarges his accommodations and adopts A violent method of securing boarders.

When Jim Fenton waked from his long and refreshing sleep, after his weary tramp and his row upon the river, the sun was shining brightly, the blue-birds were singing, the partridges were drumming, and a red squirrel, which even Turk would not disturb, was looking for provisions in his cabin, or eyeing him saucily from one of the beams over his head.  He lay for a moment, stretching his huge limbs and rubbing his eyes, thinking over what he had undertaken, and exclaiming at last:  “Well, Jim, ye’ve got a big contrack,” he jumped up, and, striking a fire, cooked his breakfast.

His first work was to make an addition to his accommodations for lodgers, and he set about it in thorough earnest.  Before noon he had stripped bark enough from the trees in his vicinity to cover a building as large as his own.  The question with him was whether he should put up an addition to his cabin, or hide a new building somewhere behind the trees in his vicinity.  In case of pursuit, his lodgers would need a cover, and this he knew he could not give them in his cabin; for all who were in the habit of visiting the woods were familiar with that structure, and would certainly notice any addition to it, and be curious about it.  Twenty rods away there was a thicket of hemlock, and by removing two or three trees in its center, he could successfully hide from any but the most inquisitive observation the cabin he proposed to erect.  His conclusion was quickly arrived at, and before he slept that night the trees were down, the frame was up, and the bark was gathered.  The next day sufficed to make the cabin habitable; but he lingered about the work for several days, putting up various appointments of convenience, building a broad bed of hemlock boughs, so deep and fragrant and inviting, that he wondered he had never undertaken to do as much for himself as he had thus gladly done for others, and making sure that there was no crevice at which the storms of spring and summer could force an entrance.