Mike Conlin found his second horse and the requisite sled, and, the river freezing solidly and continuously, he was enabled not only to draw the lumber to the river, but up to the very point where it was to be used, and where Jim and Mr.Benedict were hewing and framing their timber, and pursuing their trapping with unflinching industry.
Number Ten was transformed into a stable, where Mike kept his horses on the nights of his arrival.

Two trips a week were all that he could accomplish, but the winter was so long, and he was so industrious, that before the ice broke up, everything for the construction of the house had been delivered, even to the bricks for the chimney, the lime for the plastering, and the last clapboard and shingle.

The planning, the chaffing, the merry stories of which Number Nine was the scene that winter, the grand, absorbing interest in the enterprise in which these three men were engaged, it would be pleasant to recount, but they may safely be left to the reader's imagination.

What was Sam Yates doing?
He lived up to the letter of his instructions.

Finding himself in the possession of an assured livelihood, respectably dressed and engaged in steady employment, his appetite for drink loosened its cruel hold upon him, and he was once more in possession of himself.