Charley had! And when he learned that the delicious
roast meat was a cut of the lynx that he and Toby had killed the night
before, his natural prejudice against unaccustomed food did not prevent
him from taking a second helping.

Charley scarce had time to think of home. Skipper Zeb was quite aware
that the best antidote for homesickness is work, with little time to
ruminate, and he kept Charley busy from morning till night with himself
and Toby doing the most interesting things imaginable, and, with all the
other work, the boys visited their rabbit snares each day and set new
ones. The week passed quickly, and on Saturday evening, when they sat
down to supper, Skipper Zeb announced:

"Well, now, here 'tis time to go to the path and set up the traps. We'll
be leavin' Monday marnin', lads."

This was an adventure to which Charley had looked forward with keen
anticipation since Skipper Zeb had first announced that he and Toby were
to accompany him. Reaching away for countless miles in every direction
from the water's edge lay the vast primordial, boundless wilderness.
What unfathomed mysteries it held! There it slept as it had slept
through the silence of unnumbered ages since the world was formed,
untrod by the white man's foot, known only to wild Indian hunters, as
primitive as the wilderness itself. What strange beasts lived in its far
fastnesses! What marvelous lakes, what great rivers, what mountain peaks
waited there to be discovered! What a wonderful sensation it would be to
penetrate the hem of its outer edge beyond the sight and reach of even
Skipper Zeb's frontier cabin.

This was what Charley was thinking, as they talked of the going on
Monday morning, though he could not, perhaps, have put his thoughts or
emotions into words that would express them.

"'Tis a late start," Skipper Zeb continued. "I never goes in quite so
late to set up my path. But I has two fine helpers, whatever, and I
never has they before."

Everything was made ready on Sunday night, and a full two hours before
daybreak on Monday morning Skipper Zeb's small boat was laden with a
cargo of flour, pork, molasses, tea and steel traps, with extra clothing
for the trail. Two pairs of snowshoes were taken for himself, in case of
accident to one of them, and also a pair for Toby and a pair for
Charley.

"'Tis never safe to go without snowshoes at this season," explained
Skipper Zeb. "If snow comes now, there'll be no gettin' about without