o every one else, was open to her; with the aid of the tomahawk she
patiently made an opening in the ice, and over this she built a little
shelter of pine boughs stuck into the ice. Armed with a sharp spear
carved out of hardened wood, she would lie upon the ice and patiently
await the rising of some large fish to the air-hole, when dexterously
plunging it into the unwary creature, she dragged it to the surface.
Many a noble fish did the young squaw bring home, and lay at the feet
of him whom she had tacitly elected as her lord and master; to him she
offered the voluntary service of a faithful and devoted servant--I might
almost have said, slave.

During the middle of December there were some days of such intense cold,
that even our young Crusoes, hardy as they were, preferred the blazing
log-fire and warm ingle nook, to the frozen lake and cutting north-west
wind which blew the loose snow in blinding drifts over its bleak,
unsheltered surface. Clad in the warm tunic and petticoat of Indian
blanket with fur-lined mocassins, Catharine and her Indian friend felt
little cold excepting to the face when they went abroad, unless the wind
was high, and then experience taught them to keep at home. And these
cold gloomy days they employed in many useful works. Indiana had
succeeded in dyeing the quills of the porcupine that she had captured on
Grape Island; with these she worked a pair of beautiful mocassins and
an arrow case for Hector, besides making a sheath for Louis's
_couteau-du-chasse_, of which the young hunter was very proud, bestowing
great praise on the workmanship.

Indiana appeared to be deeply engrossed with some work that she was
engaged in, but preserved a provoking degree of mystery about it, to the
no small annoyance of Louis, who, among his other traits of character,
was remarkably inquisitive, wanting to know the why and wherefore of
everything he saw.

Indiana first prepared a frame of some tough wood, it might be the inner
bark of the oak or elm or hiccory; this was pointed at either end, and
wide in the middle--not very much unlike the form of some broad, flat
fish; over this she wove an open network of narrow thongs of deer-hide,
wetted to make it more pliable, and securely fastened to the frame: when
dry, it became quite tight, and resembled a sort of coarse bamboo-work
such as you see on cane-bottomed chairs and sofas.

"And now, Indiana, tell us what sort of fish you are going to catch in
your inge