The lake was oval in shape, and an imaginary line drawn from shore to shore at its center would measure more than a mile. The hut stood half a mile north of the eastern end of this line, and a summer hotel, patronized mostly by zealots of rod and hook, lay half a mile south of it on the opposite side. Thus, except on the rare occasions when a fishing canoe came that way--and the water was so alive with fish that the requisite paddling meant so much wasted time and effort--they were absolutely shut off from the world. Even while they were scampering to the spot where they had landed the night before, Power was noting a tree-shrouded creek where a tiny stream from the hills babbled the last of its brief life into the placid bosom of the lake. There, he decided, it would be easy to contrive an admirable bathing-place for Nancy, as she was only a timid swimmer, having acquired the art quite recently. He himself was equally at home in sea, river, and lake. On one occasion, during his engineering novitiate, he had swum across the Arkansas River when it was almost at flood level, and it needs those who have seen and heard that turbulent stream roaring through its rocky canyons between Pueblo and Las Animas to appreciate the feat at its true worth. Then he would teach her how to fish and shoot; for they must be self-supporting to a large extent, though the hotel provided a well-equipped base for this foray into the wilds of the Adirondacks. Yes, they would have a glorious time, living like Indians, yet tempering their savagery by the sweet communion of kindred souls, with never a newspaper nearer than the hotel, their address a tangle of wooded mountains, and their solitary book a copy of Milton's poems, which, Nancy had said once in Newport, she had never appreciated properly, and which Power, an enthusiast, had recommended to her close study as the well of English, pure and undefiled. Nor was their earliest day-dream any fantasy, or other than a superficial glimpse of delights which expanded hourly before their enraptured vision. A whole fortnight slipped away so rapidly in this Elysium that Nancy, keeping a housewifely eye on stores, discovered the flight of time only by the urgent need of replenishing a cupboard bare of coffee, and sugar, and bacon, and other essentials, notably matches; for the summer camp has yet to be built in which the supply of matches has endured to the end.