Ernest Hunter was well prepared to entertain his guests in real scout fashion. His parents' home was not large enough to afford sleeping quarters and other ordinary conveniences for seven visitors in addition to the regular personnel of the family, but the boy had taken care of this deficiency long before he had ever dreamed that it might occur. The Hunter home included a large tract of land running clear up to the foot of the mountain, which, at this point, was rocky and covered with a plentiful growth of white pine, hemlock and black spruce. Hidden behind an irregular heap of boulders and a small timber foreground was a cave, formed by nature and nature's anarchistic elements, that could not fail to delight the most fastidious wonder-seeker. The entrance was about the size of an ordinary doorway, flanked by twin boulders like columns for an arched shelter. Within was a large room with fairly smooth walls and ceiling of Silurian rock and sandstone.