The bungalow was darkened by drawn curtains when he entered. One after
another he let them up, and the sun poured in. Brady had left his place
in order, and Keith felt about him an atmosphere of cheer that was a
mighty urge to his flagging spirits. Brady was a home man without a
wife. The Company's agent had called his place "The Shack" because it
was built entirely of logs, and a woman could not have made it more
comfortable. Keith stood in the big living-room. At one end was a
strong fireplace in which kindlings and birch were already laid,
waiting the touch of a match. Brady's reading table and his easy chair
were drawn up close; his lounging moccasins were on a footstool; pipes,
tobacco, books and magazines littered the table; and out of this
cheering disorder rose triumphantly the amber shoulder of a half-filled
bottle of Old Rye.

Keith found himself chuckling. His grin met the lifeless stare of a
pair of glass eyes in the huge head of an old bull moose over the
mantel, and after that his gaze rambled over the walls ornamented with
mounted heads, pictures, snowshoes, gun-racks and the things which went
to make up the comradeship and business of Brady's picturesque life.
Keith could look through into the little dining-room, and beyond that
was the kitchen. He made an inventory of both and found that McDowell
was right. There were nutcrackers in Brady's establishment. And he
found the bathroom. It was not much larger than a piano box, but the
tub was man's size, and Keith raised a window and poked his head out to
find that it was connected with a rainwater tank built by a genius,
just high enough to give weight sufficient for a water system and low
enough to gather the rain as it fell from the eaves. He laughed
outright, the sort of laugh that comes out of a man's soul not when he
is amused but when he is pleased. By the time he had investigated the