"I believe you will find things pretty much to your hand there," he went on, in a ruminative voice. "You remember I came from that part of the country, and the locality is entirely familiar. I have been all over Bald Knob a dozen times. Eight years ago a shack stood just where you would want yours. I think a fellow who had a natural love for the woods built it some eighteen or nineteen years ago, lived there a while, and later moved to another State. It is made entirely of undressed logs, and has one room and a kitchen. It ought to be in good condition yet, because it is protected by the bulk of the knob. I should guess the room to be about sixteen feet square, and the kitchen is a box, but big enough. There is a spring near, considerably impregnated with sulphur. This water can have nothing but a good effect. If the shack still stands, you should consider yourself very lucky." As he drew this picture, I could not help but gaze at the sumptuous furnishings of the room in which I sat. "How close is the nearest town?" I asked. "The nearest town is Cedarton, my old home, ten miles from Bald Knob, but there is a hamlet within three miles. This consists of a few cottages, a store, a blacksmith shop and a distillery. You will have occasion to visit neither place often. If you should happen to run short of provisions, go to the hamlet called Hebron." "Then seclusion is as necessary as pure air and plain food?" "It is to prevent you from forming the habit that I advise you not to seek people. Man is naturally gregarious. If you began going to the hamlet once a week you would soon be going every day, and you would deteriorate into a cracker box philosopher or a nail keg politician, spending your time in hump-shouldered inertia rather than in tramping through the health-giving open in quest of the life-plant. You are going forth with a purpose, my son; don't forget that." I threw my head back against the cushioned leather, and in doing so my eyes lighted on a magnificent moose head over the mantel. "You killed that fellow?" I asked, swerving suddenly from the subject without apology, as is permitted between old friends. "Yes; in northern Maine. I trailed him ten days, went hungry for two, broke through some thin lake ice in zero weather, tramped five miles with my wet clothes frozen on me before I could get to a fire, and slept two nights under snow a foot deep. Then I killed him." I stared at him curiously. "I confess," I said, "that I have thought you were giving me a prescription you knew nothing about. I beg your pardon for my unbelief." He smiled, and broke his cigar ash into the tray at his elbow. "I wouldn't miss my annual trip into Eden for a year's income," he said. "It is during those thirty days I store up life and energy for the remaining three hundred and thirty-five."