As the canoe could not be overloaded on account of the
rice-gathering, Catharine very readily consented to employ herself with
fishing from the raft till their return.

The manner of procuring the rice was very simple. One person steered the
canoe with the aid of the paddle along the edge of the rice beds, and
another with a stick in one hand, and a curved sharp-edged paddle in
the other, struck the heads off as they bent them over the edge of the
stick; the chief art was in letting the heads fall into the canoe, which
a little practice soon enabled them to do as expertly as the mower lets
the grass fall in ridges beneath his scythe.

Many bushels of wild rice were thus collected. Nothing could he more
delightful than this sort of work to our young people, and merrily they
worked, and laughed, and sung, as they came home each day with their
light bark, laden with a store of grain that they knew would preserve
them from starving through the long, dreary winter that was coming on.

The canoe was a source of great comfort and pleasure to them; they were
now able to paddle out into the deep water, and fish for masquinonje and
black bass, which they caught in great numbers.

Indiana seemed quite another creature when, armed with a paddle of her
own carving, she knelt at the head of the canoe and sent it flying over
the water; then her dark eyes, often so vacant and glassy, sparkled with
delight, and her teeth gleamed with ivory whiteness as her face broke
into smiles and dimples.

It was delightful then to watch this child of nature, and see how
innocently happy she could be when rejoicing in the excitement of
healthy exercise, and elated by a consciousness of the power she
possessed of excelling her companions in feats of strength and skill
which they had yet to acquire by imitating her.

Even Louis was obliged to confess that the young savage knew more of
the management of a canoe, and the use of the bows and arrows, and the
fishing-line, than either himself or his cousin. Hector was lost in
admiration of her skill in all these things; and Indiana rose highly in
his estimation, the more he saw of her usefulness.

"Every one to his craft," said Louis, laughing; "the little squaw has
been brought up in the knowledge and practice of such matters from her
babyhood; perhaps if we were to set her to knitting, and spinning, and
milking of cows, and house-work, and learning to read, I doubt if she
would prove half as quick