ssion, the moose was gone. I sometimes
wonder, looking back, whether there really was a moose there or not. Did
I or did I not see a twinkle in Bill Shea's eye as he described the
sweep of the moose's horns? I wonder.

[Illustration: _The horses in the rope corral_]

Birds there were in plenty; wild ducks that swam across the lake at
terrific speed as we approached; plover-snipe, tiny gray birds with long
bills and white breasts, feeding along the edge of the lake peacefully
at our very feet; an eagle carrying a trout to her nest. Brown squirrels
came into the tents and ate our chocolate and wandered over us
fearlessly at night. Bears left tracks around the camp. But we saw none
after we left the Lake McDonald country.

Yet this is a great game-country. The warden reports a herd of
thirty-six moose in the neighborhood of Bowman Lake; mountain-lion,
lynx, marten, bear, and deer abound. A trapper built long ago a
substantial log shack on the north shore of the lake, and although it is
many years since it was abandoned, it is still almost weather-proof. All
of us have our dreams. Some day I should like to go back and live for a
little time in that forest cabin. In the long snow-bound days after he
set his traps, the trapper had busied himself fitting it up. A tin can
made his candle-bracket on the wall, axe-hewn planks formed a table and
a bench, and diagonally across a corner he had built his fireplace of
stones from the lakeside.

He had a simple method of constructing a chimney; he merely left without
a roof that corner of the cabin and placed slanting boards in it. He had
made a crane, too, which swung out over the fireplace. All of the Rocky
Mountains were in his back garden, and his front yard was Bowman Lake.

We had had fair weather so far. But now rain set in. Hail came first;
then a steady rain. The tents were cold. We got out our slickers and
stood out around the beach fire in the driving storm, and ate our
breakfast of hot cakes, fried ham, potatoes and onions cooked together,
and hot coffee. The cook rigged up a tarpaulin over his little stove and
stood there muttering and frying. He had refused to don a slicker, and
his red sweater, soaking up the rain, grew heavy with moisture and began
to stretch. Down it crept, down and down.

The cook straightened up from his frying-pan and looked at it. Then he
said:--

"There, little sweater, don't you cry;
You'll be a blanket by and by."