Garrett Thornwood had six weeks before the first snow, and no ground to build on. He walked the ridge above Gallowsoak with an axe on his shoulder and a folded map going soft in his pocket. Three winters back, a lost woodcutter had frozen a half mile from Garrett's own door, close enough that Garrett heard the dogs find the body. Since then he had promised himself a lodge out here in the deep timber, a warm room with a lit stove where any wanderer could stumble in and live. He had the tools. He had the timber rights. What he did not have was a site. He had marked four in a month and crossed out all four. One flooded in spring. One sat too far from clean water. One belonged to a stand of rotten pine. The last had no southern light. Without a chosen place he could not fell, and without felled logs he could not haul, and without hauled logs he could not raise walls before the ground froze hard as iron. He stopped to drink at a shallow creek and a small striped chipmunk shot across his boot. It froze on a flat stone, tail high, black eyes fixed on him. Then it darted uphill through the ferns. Garrett followed, more from tiredness than reason. The chipmunk vanished into a hollow at the base of a leaning cedar. Garrett knelt where it had gone. The ground under his hand was dry. He stood and looked around properly for the first time. The slope rose gentle behind him and blocked the north wind. A spring ran clear ten paces down. The trees were straight spruce, thick as his waist, easy felling. South opened through a gap where the low sun already warmed his face. He paced the flat and counted thirty strides each way. He drove his axe into the cedar to mark it. Then he unfolded the soft map, set it on his knee, and drew a square where he stood. Tomorrow he would come back with the crosscut saw and start dropping trees. The site was chosen. The clock had started.