“We ought to make the Carry by noon easy,” he declared, as he swung along. “It’s not more than fifteen miles from here. We’ll get dinner there and then we won’t have to start on our supply till night.” As the sun rose higher and higher, the temperature seemed to more than keep pace with it, and by nine o’clock they were glad to stop and take off their heavy mackinaws, which they added to their packs. The sun was now getting in his work on the snow, and soon they were obliged to don their snow-shoes. And now their progress became much slower as the melting snow showed a decided tendency to cling to the shoes until they became so heavy that they seemed like lead. “Gee whiz, but this bears a great resemblance to work,” Jack panted, as he stopped and leaned against a big spruce. “How far do you think we are from the Carry?” he asked. “Not more than a mile or two,” Bob replied cheerfully. “Getting tired?” “Well, I don’t know as you’d call it tired,” Jack laughed. “But I never knew snow could get so sticky.” “It sure is kinder heavy,” Bob smiled. “But you see we’ve been in the open most of the time where the sun gets a good whack at it. After we leave the Carry it’ll be most all woods and I hardly think the snow’ll be so wet. Let’s hope not anyway.” It was only a little past ten o’clock when they reached the North West Carry, a small settlement consisting of a few log cabins and a general store, at the extreme northwestern point of Moosehead Lake. During the summer and fall it is a busy place thronged with summer visitors and hunters, but now it was all but deserted. The boys knew no one there as they had spent the most of their time, when at the lake, on the other shore. There was no one in the store as they entered except the man who ran it, but he greeted them as though they were the first outsiders he had seen for a long time. “You look as if you’d found some prutty hard tramping,” he said after he had shaken them both by the hand. “Sure is pretty hard going after the snow gets soft,” Bob smiled. “I wonder if we can get dinner anywhere here?” he asked. “You wait a minute and I’ll see if the wife can fix you up,” the storekeeper replied as he left the store by a back door. He was back again almost immediately with the welcome news that if they could wait a half hour dinner would be ready for them. “Where you boys goin’?” he asked as he motioned to them to sit down. “That is,” he added, “if I hain’t stickin’ my nose inter what’s none of my business.” For a second Bob hesitated, then thinking that it could do no possible harm to tell him, he explained their mission. The storekeeper, a man about sixty years old, listened intently until he had finished. “So you are goin’ ter hike it up ter Musquacook, eh,” he said slowly. “Yes. Do you know how far it is from here?” Bob asked.