ndian who could speak English explained to him.

They said that he had been made a member of an Indian family in place
of a great man who had been killed. And then they gave him a wooden
bowl and a spoon, and took him to a feast, where Indian politeness
required that he should eat all the food given to him.

After James Smith was adopted by the Indians, he learned to live in
their way. He learned how to make little bowls out of elm bark to catch
maple-sugar sap, and how to make great casks out of the bark to hold
the sap till it could be boiled. He learned how to make a bearskin into
a pouch to hold bear's oil, of which the Indians were very fond. They
mixed their hominy with bear's oil and maple sugar, and they cooked
their venison in oil and sugar also.

The Indians gave James an Indian name. They called him Scouwa. The
Indians gave him a gun. Once when they trusted him to go into the woods
alone, he got lost, and staid out all night. Then they took away his
gun, and gave him a bow and arrow, such as boys carried. For nearly two
years he had to carry a bow and arrows like a boy.

He was once left behind when there was a great snowstorm. He could not
find the footsteps of the others, on account of the driving snow. But
after a while he found a hollow tree. There was a little room three
feet wide in the inside of the tree. He chopped a great many sticks
with his tomahawk to close up the opening in the side of the tree. He
left only a hole big enough for him to crawl in through. He fixed a
block for a kind of door, so as to close this hole by drawing the door
shut when he was inside. When the hole was shut, it was dark in the
tree.

But James, or Scouwa as he was called, could stand up in the tree. He
broke up rotten wood to make a bed like a large goose nest. He danced
up and down on his bed till he was warm. Then he wrapped his blanket
about him and lay down to sleep, first putting his damp moccasins under
his head to keep them from freezing. When he awoke, it was dark. The
hole in the tree was so well closed that he could not tell whether it
was daylight or not, but he waited a long time to be sure that day had
come.

Then he felt for the opening. At last he found it. He pushed on the
block that he had used for a door, but three feet of snow had fallen
during the night. All his strength would not move the block. He was a
prisoner under the snow. Not one ray of light could get into this dark
hole.

Scouwa was