put a pot of meat stew over the fire before he started back
up the trail to bring in the canoe, when they first had come in with
the packs. This he now finished cooking over the renewed fire, and by
and by the odors arose so pleasantly that each boy sat waiting, his
knife and fork on the tin plate in his lap. Alex, looking on, smiled
quietly, but said nothing.

"Moise doesn't build a fire just the way I've been taught," said Rob,
after a while.

"No," added John. "I was thinking of that, too."

"He's Injun, same as me," said Alex, smiling. "No white man can build
a fire for an Injun. S'pose you ask me to put your hat on for you so
you wouldn't need to touch it. I couldn't do that. You'd have to fix
it a little yourself. Same way with Injun and his fire."

"That's funny," said Rob. "Why is that?"

"I don't know," smiled Alex.

"He just throws the sticks together in a long heap and pushes the ends
in when they burn through," said Jesse. "He didn't cut any wood at
all."

Moise grinned at this, but ventured no more reply.

"You see," said Alex, "if you live all the time in the open you learn
to do as little work as possible, because there is always so much to
do that your life depends on that you don't want to waste any
strength."

"It doesn't take a white man long to get into that habit," said Rob.

"Yes. Besides, there is another reason. An Injun has to make his
living with his rifle. Chopping with an ax is a sound that frightens
game more than any other. The bear and deer will just get up and leave
when they hear you chopping. So when we come into camp we build our
fire as small as possible, and without cutting any more wood than we
are obliged to. You see, we'll be gone the next morning, perhaps, so
we slip through as light as possible. A white man leaves a trail like
a wagon-road, but you'd hardly know an Injun had been there. You soon
get the habit when you have to live that way."

"Grub pile!" sang out Moise now, laughing as he moved the pans and the
steaming tea-kettle by the side of the fire. And very soon the boys
were falling to with good will in their first meal in camp.

"Moise, she'll ben good cook--many tams mans'll tol' me that," grinned
Moise, pleasantly, drawing a little apart from the fire with his own
tin pan on his knee.

"We'll give you a recommendation," said John. "This stew is fine. I
was awfully hungry."

It was not long after they had finished their supper before all began
to f