"Well, by the Great Horn Spoon, you are the laziest bunch of fellows I've seen in many a long day. What's all this scheming and planning about that's going on here? Are one of you fellows trying to get a Presidential nomination?" Ham seated himself on a chair facing the fellows. They were lounging on a big window-seat in a corner of the game-room, talking earnestly in low tones. "Come, now, let's hear about it. What's the game? Say, fellows, I just heard a rattling good story." "Well, now, Ham, let up on your stories for about two shakes and give us your attention. We have an idea, a real, first-class scheme, if you please, and we want you to give us your expert opinion on it," said Shorty Wier, as he went and closed the door. "All aboard; let her go! What do you want me to do? When are you going to do it? Hurry, I'm getting awfully excited." "Well," continued Shorty, "Fat originated this idea, or at least he suggested it, and we have just been talking it over. How fine it would be if we owned a cabin, a good-sized log cabin, big enough to take care of at least twenty fellows over night. A place far enough from the city to keep it from being continually broken into by rowdies, and still within a couple of hours' walking distance from the car-line. With all of this great string of mountains and canyons, so well-forested and filled with streams, it ought to be an easy matter to find some such a place. Of course it would be ideal if we could find a cabin already built; then all we would have to do would be to rig it up. But we are game sports, every man of us, and if we can't find any such cabin built, let's locate an ideal spot and build one. Nothing real fancy or expensive, but just a typical mountain house that's weather-tight and warm. Of course we'd want a big fireplace like the one at Bruin Inn. It would be a great big job, but we could take our time to it. We'd have all winter, and more, if we needed it. Now, what we want is your suggestion, understand; we are just talking and planning about it yet." "Gee, it would be an awful pile of work," complained Sleepy Smith, and he yawned and stretched himself. "Work! of course it would be work, you dub; but what do you ever get in this world that's worth while without real work, I'd like to know." "Work! that's the best part of it; nothing in the world could bind us fellows together so tight as to do a big piece of real work together. We would show each other what we're made of. I always have wanted to build a cabin in the mountains. It would be a great deal better to build one than to get an old, tumbled-down shack. Besides, we don't want to work out a stunt that's just going to last for a year or two, and then be abandoned. We want to build a real, permanent mountain camp. See?" added Chuck. "What's the matter with the old Y.M. cabin up in Bear Creek, Shorty?" "O rats, boys, we are not talking about a pill box now. We want a cabin."