t, while just inside the south door
stood a comical homemade shakedown. The frame was built of straight young
aspen poles, while the springs were just a carefully woven layer of
balsam boughs spread over a bottom of limber young saplings. It had once
been a wonder of comfort and ease, but its value had passed with the
departure of its builder.

The trail ran close in front of the door and then climbed over the sandy
base of a great crag, and disappeared over the hill. Just as it left the
level of the house and started upward, there stood an immense Douglas
spruce like some faithful guard, his proud green helmet stretched up into
the sky so that he might be the more able to see any approaching danger.
A great smoke-stained rock lay just at the end of the house, before which
was built a primitive fireplace. An assortment of tin cans, lying in the
little ravine, told the simple tale of bygone campfire suppers and of
hunters and explorers and miners.

"Well, this is what I call luck--pure, unadulterated luck, with sugar on
it," drawled Ham as he surveyed the house.

"Luck, your grandmother," said Phil. "Do you call something that you have
been searching for for four long days luck?"

"Excuse me," answered Ham, in mock courtesy. "I forgot when I made that
statement that there is no such thing as luck. It was my old friend,
'William Shakespeare,' that wrote that famous line about luck, 'Luck is
pluck in action,' or something like that, wasn't it? That's what it was
here, anyway."

"Well, at any rate," said Mr. Allen, as he joined the group after his
round of inspection, "the old shanty is chucked full of possibilities."

"I'm glad something is full," interrupted Fat. "We certainly aren't in
the same class, that cabin and I. It's been so long since I've fed that
my floating ribs have run ashore. The worst of it is that all I have left
is a can of condensed milk, about a teaspoon of sugar, and a little
butter that's a second cousin to what's in that grub box yonder. I'm
going to borrow a few possibilities from the cabin and beg for food.
Let's have dinner."

"Right here by this old rock," called Willis. "Perhaps we can roast a
little information out of these rocks."

Chuck had gone down stream into a grove of large aspens, and at this
moment came panting up the trail.

"Bees--peach of a tree--honey galore--millions of them!" he panted.

"That sounds like something to eat," cried Fat. "Come along, Chuck, I'm
with you