"It was a long trip, fellows, but we're here at last, thank goodness!"

"Yes, away up in the North Woods, at the hunting lodge of Trapper Jim!"

"Say, it's hard to believe, and that's a fact. What do you say about it,
you old stutterer, Toby Jucklin?"

"B-b-bully!" exploded the boy, whose broad shoulders, encased in a blue
flannel shirt, had been pounded when this question was put directly at
him.

There were five of them, half-grown boys all, lounging about in the most
comfortable fashion they could imagine in the log cabin which Old Jim
Ruggles occupied every fall and winter.

"Trapper Jim" they called him, and these boys from Carson had long been
yearning to accept the hearty invitation given to spend a week or two
with the veteran woodsman. A year or so back Jim had dropped down to see
his brother Alfred, who was a retired lawyer living in their home town.
And it was at this time they first found themselves drawn toward Jim
Ruggles.

When he heard of several little camping experiences which had befallen
Toby Jucklin and his chums, the trapper had struck up a warm friendship
with the boy who seemed to be the natural leader of the lot, Max
Hastings.

Well, they had been writing back and forth this long time. Eagerly had