eat cloud
following the bang had deared away, the two were gone and the lesser
buck was kicking on the ground some fifty yards away.

"We have found the good hunting; the deer walk into camp," said Quonab;
and the product of the chase was quickly stored, the first of the
supplies to be hung in the new storehouse.

The entrails were piled up and covered with brush and stones. "That will
keep off ravens and jays; then in winter the foxes will come and we can
take their coats."

Now they must decide for the morning. Skookum was somewhat better, but
still very sick, and Rolf suggested: "Quonab, you take the gun and axe
and lay a new line. I will stay behind and finish up the cabin for the
winter and look after the dog." So it was agreed. The Indian left the
camp alone this time and crossed to the east shore of the lake; there to
follow up another stream as before and to return in three or four days
to the cabin.

Chapter 28. Alone in the Wilderness

Rolf began the day by giving Skookum a bath as hot as he could stand it,
and later his soup. For the first he whined feebly and for the second
faintly wagged his tail; but clearly he was on the mend.

Now the chinking and moss-plugging of the new cabin required all
attention. That took a day and looked like the biggest job on hand, but
Rolf had been thinking hard about the winter. In Connecticut the
wiser settlers used to bank their houses for the cold weather; in the
Adirondacks he knew it was far, far colder, and he soon decided to bank
the two shanties as deeply as possible with earth. A good spade made of
white oak, with its edge hardened by roasting it brown, was his first
necessity, and after two days of digging he had the cabin with its annex
buried up to "the eyes" in fresh, clean earth.

A stock of new, dry wood for wet weather helped to show how much too
small the cabin was; and now the heavier work was done, and Rolf had
plenty of time to think.

Which of us that has been left alone in the wilderness does not remember
the sensations of the first day! The feeling of self-dependency, not
unmixed with unrestraint; the ending of civilized thought; the total
reversion to the primitive; the nearness of the wood-folk; a sense of
intimacy; a recurrent feeling of awe at the silent inexorability of
all around; and a sweet pervading sense of mastery in the very freedom.
These were among the feelings that swept in waves through Rolf, and
when the first night came, h