But I steered.

A three-mile pull brought us to the camp just as the night fell, and we stepped ashore very tired and wolfishly hungry.

In a "cache" among the rocks we found the provisions and the cooking utensils, and then, all fatigued as I was, I sat down on a boulder and superintended while Johnny gathered wood and cooked supper.
Many a man who had gone through what I had, would have wanted to rest.
It was a delicious supper--hot bread, fried bacon, and black coffee.
It was a delicious solitude we were in, too.

Three miles away was a saw-mill and some workmen, but there were not fifteen other human beings throughout the wide circumference of the lake.

As the darkness closed down and the stars came out and spangled the great mirror with jewels, we smoked meditatively in the solemn hush and forgot our troubles and our pains.