her end was supported in the
hollow of a shell which Keketaw held in his hand.

The string to Henry's bow was made of one of the cords or sinews of a
deer's leg. He wound this once round the stick. With his left hand,
Keketaw then put some dry moss about the stick where it entered the
hole in the dry wood.

When all was ready, Henry drew his bow to and fro like a saw. Keketaw
pressed the shell down on the upper part of the stick. The bow-string
holding the stick made it whirl in the hole beneath. At first this
seemed to produce no effect. After a while the rapid rubbing of the
piece of wood in the hole made heat. Presently a very thin thread of
smoke began to come up through the little heap of moss about the
stick. Henry was now pretty well out of breath, but he sawed the bow
faster than ever. At last the moss began to smolder and to show fire.

Keketaw then withdrew the smoking stick, and gathered the moss
together. Lying down by it, and putting his arm about it, the Indian
lad began to blow it gently. The smoldering fire increased until a
little blue flame, which he could barely see, appeared. Keketaw now
added some very thin paper-like bits of dry bark and some small twigs
to the pile of smoking moss. These caught fire, and sent up a
straw-colored flame. Henry put on larger twigs until there was at last
a crackling blaze.

Taking lighted sticks from this fire, the boys made a fire all round
the base of a large tree from which they meant to get the canoe. This
fire they kept going constantly for two days. They even got up at
night to put dead boughs on, it.

[Illustration: Burning down a Tree.]

On the third night of their stay in camp, they didn't lie down at the
usual time, for the tree was burned nearly through. About two o'clock
in the morning a little breeze rustled in the leaves of the great
tree. Slowly at first, then more and more rapidly, the tree fell with
a tremendous crashing sound, until with a final thundering roar it lay
flat upon the ground.

Sleepy as the boys were, they did not lie down for the night until
they had built a new fire near the trunk of the tree. Having no ax to
chop with, they had to burn the log in two. They put the fire at a
place that would cut off enough of the tree trunk to make a canoe.

The next day they built up this new fire, and then went fishing in the
neighboring stream with their bone fishhooks, and lines made of the
Spanish bayonet leaf. In two days after the fal