We reached Dan'l's in time for a late luncheon and were none the worse for our exploit. While we were on our lookout mountain we recognized several lakes and ponds and learned that Plum Pond was a long way from Muskrat City and to the south of it. Also, while there, on a piece of birch bark we made a topographical map of the region in view and laid out a new route to Muskrat City. This route was not a direct bee-line. It was circuitous, but it would avoid the swamps, the deep valleys and the steep ridges, and also would enter the city following up along the brook. Having gone out to our headquarters on the lake for fresh supplies, a week later we made another trip to Muskrat City. This time we carried a small tent, an axe and food to last a week. While there we built a log lean-to camp. It was placed on a shelf, or narrow level space on the steep hillside, about seventy feet above the bottom of the valley. The shelf was just wide enough for our building and the fireplace in front. There were plenty of stones on the ground with which we built the fireplace. We chose this elevation for our building site because it would be above the fogs that often at night settle in the bottom of a valley, on a stream or pond. [Illustration: Owl's Head over the roof of the saw mill] A rill, tumbling down the steep hillside, draining a cold spring above, passed within thirty yards of the camp and supplied us with the kind of drinking water that, in the city, we buy for thirty cents a quart. This is a commodity that Nature distributes with lavish hand throughout this entire mountain region. On every hillside may be found one or more springs of pure soft water having a temperature of approximately forty degrees on the hottest days of summer. Here, the rheumatic, the dispeptic, the diabetic, and the fellow with kidneys, may have the poisons washed out of his system; while the balsamic air heals the rent in his breathing machinery. These processes may go forward, not while he sits on a hotel porch and broods over his troubles, but while he camps, explores, fishes, hunts and forgets his disabilities. [Illustration: Inside of Camp at Muskrat City] Bige and I made many trips to, and spent many days at, Muskrat City. We explored a large section of forest country adjacent thereto. In the season, we frequently ate broiled partridge, venison and other game, while a few minutes of fishing any day would furnish all the trout we ever cared to eat. When we required a variation in diet, we might go down stream about two miles to a pond and catch a mess of bullheads or frogs.