about a hundred feet high, and the top was hollow, like a cup, with only
one opening into it. In fact, the top of the hill was part of the crater
of an extinct volcano, and was shaped like the letter G, the doorway
being only a gap in the rocks, through which no bear could squeeze.

Inside, the walls were twenty feet high all round, all bare rock; but the
floor was covered with grass, and moss, and wild flowers.

Aralia and Pansy were wild with delight, and Pansy said she would now be
able to sleep without ugly dreams.

Veevee would be her bed-fellow, and Floss would curl up with Sissie, and
big Briton could sleep at the entrance.

So it was all arranged.

But as there could be no telling how long they might have to remain here,
and as rain would be sure to fall, even if snow did not, Tom and Frank
began to build a hut inside Fort Fairyland, as they called their strange
abode.

[Illustration]

Now each boy had--like all Greenland sailors--not only a large,
many-bladed knife, with a saw in it, but a huge broad dagger in a
leathern belt round his waist. So they did not want for tools.

They found the best wood for what they wanted growing close by the lake,
in the shape of straight and strong willows. There were plenty of leaves,
and grasses, and heath also.