entrance to Peter Minot's household quarters; while that on the left
opened to a large room used variously for stores and bunks.

Farther to the left stood the little shack that housed Ambrose Doane in
bachelor solitude, and a few steps beyond, the long, low, log stable
for the use of the freighters in winter.

Seen from the lake the low, spreading buildings in the rough clearing
among gigantic pines were not unpleasing. Rough as they were, they
fulfilled the first aim of all architecture; they were suitable to the
site.

The traveler by water landed on a stony beach, climbed a low bank and
followed a crooked path to the door of the store. On either hand
potato and onion patches flourished among the stumps.

From the door-sill where the partners sat, the farther shore of the
lake could be seen merely as a delicate line of tree tops poised in the
air.

Off to the right their own shore made out in a shallow, sweeping curve,
ending half a mile away in a bold hill-point where the Company's post
of Fort Moultrie had stood for two hundred years commanding the western
end of the lake and its outlet, Great Buffalo River.

To one who should compare the outward aspects of the two
establishments, Minot & Doane's offered a ludicrous contrast to the
imposing white buildings of Fort Moultrie, arranged military-wise on
the grassy promontory; nevertheless, as is not infrequently the case
elsewhere, the humbler store did the larger trade.