It seemed to Henry that this island might be seventy or eighty yards across, and he began at once to explore it.

In the center, surrounded so closely by swamp oaks that they almost formed a living wall, he found what he had hoped to find, and his relief was so great that, despite his natural and trained stoicism, he gave a little cry of pleasure when he saw it.
A small lodge, made chiefly of poles and bark after the Iroquois fashion, stood within the circle of the trees, occupying almost the whole of the space.

It was apparently abandoned long ago, and time and weather had done it much damage.

But the bark walls, although they leaned in places at dangerous angles, still stood.

The bark roof was pierced by holes on one side, but on the other it was still solid, and shed all the rain from its slope.
The door was open, but a shutter made of heavy pieces of bark cunningly joined together leaned against the wall, and Henry saw that he could make use of it.