eat stone leaped into the top of a spruce
tree and stuck fast. Another jumped over the great boulder at the base of
the hill and rattled into the open door of the cabin. Still another
dashed in mad frenzy down the slope, through the alders and into the
stream, throwing spray in every direction. So the pile steadily grew.

In the afternoon the cabin was cleaned out and a part of the back
porch demolished, ready for the new addition. It had been decided to
build a room eight by twenty-eight feet, and in it lay one great
balsam-bough mattress. Under Ham's direction the aerial bunk was begun,
and it very soon showed signs of being built by a master builder. It was
what might be termed "rustic," as Ham said. Logs from the woodpile were
substituted for the rotting ones in the floor of the bridge. A great pile
of brush, twigs, and trash were set afire and destroyed. So the day
slipped away--all too quickly. Four o'clock found a group of royal good
fellows again on the trail--that trail that was soon to become so dear to
every one of them. Their muscles were tired with unselfish work, and
their minds and hearts were full of the joy of living. There was already
something of the great social bond that was later to tie their lives
together for all time with a cord of pleasant memories.

Ham had fastened his blanket to a nail away up in the topmost rafter of
the cabin, and here he left it for another time.

"Where your blanket is, there will your heart be also, sometimes," he
quoted as they took the trail that led down out of the wilderness.

CHAPTER XII

The Discovery of the Mine

Two weeks later another crowd was organized to do a day's work on the
cabin, and it seemed every boy in the Department wanted to go. "Unless
you feel as husky as a steam elevator, you better stay home," was Ham's
advice to one small boy, for Ham had been chairman of the committee that
had been so busy since the last trip, purchasing all manner of supplies,
equipment, and building material for the cabin, all of which would have
to be packed over from Fairview on donkeys, and there was nearly a
carload of it. Ham was under the impression that the donkeys would fall
dead when they saw the "pile of junk," and that every single fellow in
the crowd would have to "wiggle his ears, bray once or twice, and get
busy," if the cabin ever became the possessor of the new equipment.

Twenty fellows besides the "Chief" and Mr. Dean were on hand at the
app