"A disagreeable place this," said he, as he commenced scraping up the accumulated mass and throwing it out of the window.
"Probably, it is a long while since it was cleansed," said Jane. "A very singular place, and if we could get home safe at last, it would be worth a little trouble and privation to have seen it."
"Something new again: wonders will never cease," said the trapper, holding up a vessel of some kind of heavy material, oval at the bottom, and capable of containing some two gallons.
"It looks like a dinner kettle; but how could a dinner kettle get here?"
"You don't think the people that used to live here lived without eating, do you?" said Howe.
"Or, that they knew how to build houses like this, and did not know how to make a dinner pot."
The rest thought they must have known how to do so natural a thing, as the proof of it was before them, and then the question arose; could they use it themselves? "For, if we can," said Jane, "we can have such nice stews and soups."
"Which we can eat with a split stick, as we do our meat, especially the soup," said Edward.
"We can have some nice wooden spoons made for that," replied the trapper. "I really think the kettle can be put in a cookable order, by taking off a coat or two of rust."
"Here is another just like it," said the chief, dragging out a similar vessel.