ur. Not to draw too fine a
comparison, the paddles were the better success, though the bread was
eatable. In the afternoon the man of all work, with Lucetta for
consulting engineer, tackled the broken canoe.

There was no lack of materials with which to make the repairs if they
had only known how to use them. Attempts to sew a patch of birch bark
over the hole with threads drawn from the blanket were dismal failures.
At each of the thread punctures the patch would split and curl up most
perversely; and when night came they had succeeded only in making a bad
matter slightly worse.

After supper they put their heads together to become, if the oracles
should prove auspicious, inventors in this hitherto untried field.

"If we only had a few drops of Indian blood in us!" Prime complained.
"What do you suppose they daub this bark thing with to make it
water-tight? It must be something they find in the woods."

Lucetta went over to the canoe, chipped a bit of the daubing from one of
the seams, and tasted it appraisingly.

"It tastes like spruce-gum," she offered; "do you suppose it can be?"

Prime ate a little in his turn and confirmed the guess. "That is about
what it is," he decided. "The next thing is to find out how they
contrive to get enough of it. I wonder if they tap the trees as we do
sugar-maples?"

"If we could find a tree that has been broken," Lucetta suggested. And
then: "How have we managed to live so long without learning some of
these perfectly simple things, Cousin Donald?"

"Too much education and too little instinct," he scoffed. "To-morrow
morning I'll climb trees and become a gum-gatherer. It seems
inexpressibly humbling to think that a small hole in a piece of birch
bark is all that prevents us from going on our way rejoicing. Never
mind, there is another day coming, and if there isn't, success or
failure won't make any considerable difference to either of us."

Bright and early the next morning they tried the spruce-gum experiment.
Prime found that he could have plenty of it for the gathering, and when
they had a sufficient quantity they melted it in one of the empty
vegetable tins and used it as a glue with which to make the patch
adhere. The result was not entirely satisfactory. The melted gum
hardened quickly, but it became so brittle that a touch would loosen it.

"This is where we set up a laboratory for original research," Lucetta
said, laughing. "I wonder if some more cooking would do