The determination which Will had made was that if he couldn’t be allowed to go to the woods properly, then he would go improperly.

He would be off. Yes, sir—he would be off, just ahead of the supply-team, which had not yet gone, and the men would feel obliged to take him on when they overtook him. They couldn’t leave him there, and they couldn’t spare the time to turn about and take him home—and so he would get to the logging-camp in spite of everyone.

As he stood thinking, he heard Janet, who had a pretty talent for music, at her practicing, playing in childish fashion the Spinning Song. He half heard in it the whirr of the wheel, the beat of the treadle, the song of the spinning girl, the rustle of leaves outside her, the hum of bees and stir of wind, and twitter of birds in the branches. And that was the last Will heard and saw of home that day. For he put on his reefer, pulled his sealskin cap over his ears, hung his skates on his arm, and with his hands buried in his pockets went down the field to take a short cut and get the start of the team.

Will felt himself very ill-used. There he was, kept at his books, with a woman to teach him, and obliged to look forward to a life of study, when he wanted to be using his muscles, to be shooting and trapping, following the deer, snaring small game!

It was very short-sighted and a great injustice on Old Uncle’s part, Will reasoned; and he couldn’t see what Aunt Susan had been thinking of; and he was very indignant with his Aunt Rose, who had insisted on those horrid rules in the subjunctive; and as for Janet she could chop all the Latin she wished—he preferred to chop wood!

Nursing his wrath, Will ran and walked and skipped along. Reaching the highway, he got a lift of some miles by clinging to the runners of a surveying party’s cutter. He got a bowl of bread and milk at a wayside shanty, for which he paid all the pennies in his pocket, then had another ride of a couple of hours on a slow ox-team laboring along to an isolated farm.

And now he was already in the woods, not the deep forest of the loggers in the remote north—that was still a journey off—but where the highway was to be guessed by the open spaces between the lower hills, as there were no marks of travel on the snow-crust. The air was already obscure, although he could see a belt of sunset through the boles of the trees. He began to have a very desolate sensation.

Will was not afraid—oh, no, not he! It was simply mighty lonesome. He trudged away, all the same, and began to whistle.

Presently he stopped whistling. He wondered why the supply-team did not come along. Had he made a mistake—was it to-morrow noon they had been going to start? Pincher had certainly told him they would be off within the hour. Probably they were only waiting for Diane to put up the cold beef and bottle the coffee. He expected to hear the bells every moment.

How surprised Old Uncle would be when he saw him come into the camp with Pincher and Jo! How angry, too, perhaps, at first! But the fact that Aunt Susan was along would counterbalance that. Will could see her sweet serene face in the white fur hood. Well, Old Uncle would understand how impossible it was to drive a boy out of his bent. Yes, he would, sir! Will reflected with pride that now he had taken things into his own hands, and walked on with great resolution. For a fellow who had taken things into his own hands could not afford to be down-hearted because the road was lonely, long, or dark. If he was—he would not say the word “afraid” even to himself. Well, if he was, what would he be in the deep woods of the caribou and the catamount? Thereat a picture came before his eyes of a huge caribou plunging down the forest-depths with great bounds, his nostrils dilating, his black eyes burning, his mighty horns laid back along his shoulders; and if ever any one was glad it was Will when he heard a far-off tinkle, and presently a peal of sledge-bells, and turned about and stood still to meet the supply-team with Pincher and Jo.

“Wal, he’s a chap of speerit, I vum!” cried Pincher, when the boy in the middle of the way raised his hand to halt the horses. “I do’ ’no’s we got anythin’ ter du but ter take him on. But I guess we’ll cure him!”

“Ol’ man’ll be mad,” suggested Jo—Old Uncle wearing that appellation on account of his mastership, by no means on account of his years.

“Can’t leave the boy here in this woodsy place, and night comin’ on, if he is,” said Pincher. “Pretty kittle o’ fish! Up with ye, youngster!”

Tucked under a lot of horse-blankets on top of the load, Will knew but little more till late the next morning. Then he found they were still jogging on. He had a vague, delightful memory of a misty scene of swinging lanterns and shouting voices, and of their changing horses in the middle of the night at the remote half-way house.

Feeling a little stiff and sore, he stretched himself, and got down to walk a bit and limber up with Pincher. And he found the cold beef and sausage and biscuit and bottled coffee as good as nectar and ambrosia.

So they plodded on through the day, with a bite here and a sup there. Just at dusk they stopped in a sheltered spot where they were to camp for the night in a rude hut built there for the logging-parties.

“Well, this is great,” said Will, standing with his legs far apart in front of the fire that Pincher had snapping outside and sending up whirls of sparks. Pincher was cooking some squirrels he had shot.

After a savory repast, Will went to sleep on a pile of hemlock-boughs, covered with another pile. He seemed to be on the brink of surprising experiences. When Jo waked him in the first glow of red sunrise through the chinks, he felt as if he had been floating on a cloud in the upper sky.

“We must hurry up,” exclaimed Jo. “’T’s thickening for foul weather.” So they broke their fast as they went along, Will refreshing himself with a huge icicle. He felt that even were he sent back to his books, and obliged to learn all about Hector and Andromache by way of punishment, it would be a cheap price to pay for the joy and satisfaction of this trip.

Still, as they approached the camp, Will’s heart was not quite as light, though they were welcomed by the baying of dogs, the chorus of clinking axes, and the shouts of the men driving the oxen that hauled the felled trees to the lake. But it rose again when he heard that Old Uncle and Aunt Susan had gone on toward the upper camp, and would not be back for some hours.

Will lost no time in making himself familiar with his new surroundings—the long low house of logs with the bunks inside, the deacon-seat where so many good stories were told, the huge fire where the sturdy little cook was frying a barrel of doughnuts at a time.

“How do you like life here?” said he to the cook.

“First-rate,” was the cook’s reply, as he dropped his dough into the fat.

“Ever seen a catamount?” Will asked.

“Cry round the camp soon’s it’s dark.”

Will’s eyes opened wider. “Really?”

“Cry like a child ter toll the men out.”

“Do the men ever go?”

“What’d they go fer? Ter be torn ter pieces?”

“Say! You got any gum?”

The cook pointed to a canister full of the daintiest-looking lumps of pink transparency.

“I suppose you have all the venison you want?” said Will, sampling the gum.

“Jes’ comes up and asks ter be et!”

Taking a doughnut, Will went out to investigate the oxen, the logging-roads, and the long frozen lake upon which the logs were being hauled to be all afloat and ready with the breaking up of the ice in the spring.

The ice lay glittering. In less than no time Will had his skates on, and was out careering over the crystal glare, doing his fancy tricks, and speeding away from reach to reach among the islands with which the great lake was sprinkled.

It was daylight much longer out on the open ice than in the woody places. And exhilarated with the glow of his swift motion, Will did not think anything about time until he saw large snow-flakes dancing about him. When he turned, he at once noticed that what light there was was only that of a gray gloaming, and that a chill damp wind was blowing in his face with a snow-storm on its wings.

However, there would be no trouble about skating back; and Will went flying campward against the wind, when the screw of one of his skates snapped and sent him tumbling headlong, rolling over and over. When he had picked himself up, and adjusted the skate again, he could not tell in which direction he had been going, up or down, along or across the lake.

The shores all looked alike. There were no lights of the camp to be seen, whether hidden by the islands or by the projecting shores. Try as he might to find the track of his skates he could not see any, either for the dim light, or for the snow that had fallen and was covering the lake more and more.

When he had skated perhaps a mile, and still saw no lights of the camp, Will was sure he had been turned about, and he reversed his motion and went in the other direction. But still there were no lights—not a twinkle anywhere, and when he hallooed no answer came but a far-off echo.

Well, this would never do, Will said. Some one of all the logging-paths would lead to camp, of course. He took off his skates and climbed the shore, and went trudging and whistling along. Still no lights. But hadn’t the camp been on the edge of the lake? He would wind along the edge, then, and sooner or later he must come to it!

But Will soon found it more than dusky among the trees; and the broad gleam of the lake was gone; and the main logging-path along the shore was gone. He did not know which one of all the dim openings was the right one; the snow was bewildering; it was already dark; he was lost.