hermen and then
looked at the long row of fish laid out on the snow.

"Enough is plenty," said he, "and I guess this will do for to-day. We
want to leave some for the boys next summer. We'll take the lines up
after dinner."

How good that dinner did smell to the hungry boys with appetites
whetted by exercise in the keen air! The snow had been shoveled away
nearly to the ground for the bed logs for the fire and ample space
cleared in front and spread with balsam boughs on which to sit. There
was a steaming kettle of pea soup and a pot of hot chocolate. The
pickerel had been split and, broiled in halves pinned to pieces of
hemlock bark, stood before the fire and basted with bacon drippings.
There was a venison steak done to a turn, for the doctor had hung a deer
in his ice house at the end of the open season. There were potatoes
boiled in their jackets. There was a brown johnny-cake baked in a
reflector oven, and to cap all a plate of the doughnuts for which Mother
Merriam was famous.

"And you call this a lunch!" cried Walter when he had eaten until he had
to let out his belt. "No wonder it required two packs to bring it here.
Well, is there anything to beat this in New York?"

"Not in a tousand years. Oi'm going to run away and live here," declared
Sparrer, and while the others laughed he stared with dreamy eyes into
the leaping flames of the huge fire Pat had built, and who shall say
but that in them he saw the symbols of new hopes and ambitions springing
from the colorless, sordid drudgery which until this time had been his
life.

After the meal was finished and the dishes washed there was an hour of
story-telling by the doctor, ending with the singing of America under
the towering snow-laden spruces and then the homeward trip. Thanks to
their experiences on the outward trip and the watchfulness resulting
therefrom there were no further mishaps, and when they reached camp and
kicked off the big webs once more the boys were ready to vote their
first day in winter woods all that they had dreamed it would be and
more. Also they were quite willing to second and carry by unanimous vote
the motion that they seek their beds early in preparation for an early
start the next day.

CHAPTER VII

ON THE TRAIL

Day was just breaking when the boys bade farewell to Doctor and Mother
Merriam, and with a hot breakfast under their belts started for the
trapping camp. As yet Pat had given no hint as to where it was loc