There was no window in the shack and the doorway was not over four feet high.  Within was a single room about six by eight feet in size, with a rude couch built of saplings, running along two sides, upon which spruce boughs, used the previous year and now dry and dead, were strewn for a bed.  The floor was of earth.  The tilt contained a sheet iron stove similar to the one Bob had brought, but no other furniture save a few cooking utensils.  The round logs of which the rough building was constructed, were well chinked between them with moss, making it snug and warm.

[Illustration]

This was where Ed kept his base of supplies.  His trail began here and ran inland and nearly northward for some distance to a lake whose shores it skirted, and then, taking a swing to the southwest, came back to the river again and ended where Dick’s began, and the two trappers had a tilt there which they used in common.  Between these tilts were four others at intervals of twelve to fifteen miles, for night shelters, the distance between them constituting a day’s work, the trail from end to end being about seventy miles long.

The trails which the other three were to hunt led off, one from the other—­Dick’s, Bill’s and then the Big Hill trail, with tilts at the juncture points and along them in a similar manner to the arrangement of Ed’s, and each trail covering about the same number of miles as his.  Each man could therefore walk the length of his trail in five days, if the weather were good, and, starting from one end on Monday morning have a tilt to sleep in each night and reach his last tilt on the other end Friday night.  This gave him Saturday in which to do odd jobs like mending, and Sunday for rest, before taking up the round again on Monday.

It was yet too early by three weeks to begin the actual trapping, but much in the way of preparation had to be done in the meantime.  This was Tuesday, and it was agreed that two weeks from the following Saturday Ed and Dick should be at the tilt where their trails met and Bill and Bob at the junction of their trails, ready to start their work on the next Monday.  This would bring Dick and Bill together on the following Friday night and Bob and Ed would each be alone, one at either end of the series of trails and more than a hundred miles from his nearest neighbour.

“I hopes your first cruise’ll be a good un, an’ you’ll be doin’ fine th’ winter, Bob.  Have a care now for th’ Nascaupees,” said Ed as they shook hands at parting.

“Thanks,” answered Bob, “an’ I hopes you’ll be havin’ a fine hunt too.”

Then they were off, and Ed’s long winter’s work began.

The next afternoon Dick’s first tilt was reached, and a part of his provisions and some of Ed’s that they had brought on for him, were unloaded there.  Dick, however, decided to go with the young men to the tilt at the beginning of the Big Hill trail, to help them haul the boat up and make it snug for the winter, saying, “I’m thinkin’ you might find her too heavy, an’ I’ll go on an’ give a hand, an’ cut across to my trail, which I can do handy enough in a day, havin’ no pack.”