“’Tis fine! ’tis grand!” exclaimed Bob at last, as he rested a moment on his oars to drink in the scene and breathe deeply the rare, fragrant atmosphere. “’Tis sure a fine world we’re in.”

“Aye, ’tis fine enough now,” remarked Ed, stopping to cut pieces from a plug of tobacco, and then cramming them into his pipe.  “But,” he continued, prophetically, as he struck a match and held it between his hands for the sulphur to burn off, “bide a bit, an’ you’ll find it ugly enough when th’ snows blow t’ smother ye, an’ yer racquets sink with ye t’ yer knees, and th’ frost freezes yer face and the ice sticks t’ yer very eyelashes until ye can’t see—­then,” continued he, puffing vigorously at his pipe, “then ’tis a sorry world—­aye, a sorry an’ a hard world for folks t’ make a livin’ in.”

It was mid-forenoon when they reached Rabbit Island—­a small wooded island where the passing dog drivers always stop in winter to make tea and snatch a mouthful of hard biscuit while the dogs have a half hour’s rest.

“An’ here we’ll boil th’ kettle,” suggested Dick.  “I’m fair starved with an early breakfast and the pull at the oars.”

“We’re ready enough for that,” assented Bill.  “Th’ wind’s prickin’ up a bit from th’ east’rd, an’ when we starts I thinks we may hoist the sails.”

“Yes, th’ wind’s prickin’ up an’ we’ll have a fair breeze t’ help us past th’ Traverspine, I hopes.”

The landing was made.  Bob and Ed each took an axe to cut into suitable lengths some of the plentiful dead wood lying right to hand, while Dick whittled some shavings and started the fire.  Bill brought a kettle (a tin pail) of water.  Then he cut a green sapling about five feet in length, sharpened one end of it, and stuck it firmly into the earth, slanting the upper end into position over the fire.  On this he hung the kettle of water, so that the blaze shot up around it.  In a little while the water boiled, and with a stick for a lifter he set it on the ground and threw in a handful of tea.  This they sweetened with molasses and drank out of tin cups while they munched hardtack.

Bill’s prophecy as to the wind proved a true one, and in the half hour while they were at their luncheon so good a breeze had sprang up that when they left Rabbit Island both sails were hoisted.

Early in the afternoon they passed the Traverspine River, and now with some current to oppose made slower, though with the fair wind, good progress, and when the sun dipped behind the western hills and they halted to make their night camp they were ten miles above the Traverspine.