This he decided to do.

Many and long were the hours that Jake spent in this lonely mountain retreat.

For miles around there was little sign of human activity.

No sound of woodman's ax was heard.
The stillness of the long summer afternoons was broken only by the tinkling of the bells on the hillsides.

A lone log cabin lifted its mud-chinked walls from the brow of a hill from under which flowed a babbling stream of clear water.