Within was a single room about six by eight feet in size,
with a rude couch built of saplings, running along two sides, upon
which spruce boughs, used the previous year and now dry and dead, were
strewn for a bed. The floor was of earth. The tilt contained a sheet
iron stove similar to the one Bob had brought, but no other furniture
save a few cooking utensils. The round logs of which the rough
building was constructed, were well chinked between them with moss,
making it snug and warm.
[Illustration]
This was where Ed kept his base of supplies. His trail began here and
ran inland and nearly northward for some distance to a lake whose
shores it skirted, and then, taking a swing to the southwest, came
back to the river again and ended where Dick's began, and the two
trappers had a tilt there which they used in common. Between these
tilts were four others at intervals of twelve to fifteen miles, for
night shelters, the distance between them constituting a day's work,
the trail from end to end being about seventy miles long.
The trails which the other three were to hunt led off, one from the
other--Dick's, Bill's and then the Big Hill trail, with tilts at the
juncture points and along them in a similar manner to the arrangement
of Ed's, and each trail covering about the same number of miles as
his.
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