"Corn meal?"
"Yes; and wheat flour, with fine new potatoes."
"All right. I will take care of the rest. I will take the young man, here, into my largest canoe, to-morrow morning, if he be so disposed, and we will go up the lake, perhaps into the upper lake, and it will be a strange case if we don't return at night with fish, and I think flesh, enough to victual the company; and, in the mean time, my women will come up and be on hand to-morrow and next day, to help Mrs. Elwood do the baking and cooking."
The friendly movement of the neighbors, thus announced, was not, of course, to be opposed or questioned by those for whose benefit it was intended, any further than Mr. Elwood had done in relation to his ability to entertain the company so well as their kindness deserved. Mr. Elwood and his son, indeed, who had been dreading the hard job of clearing off their land, were greatly gratified at the unexpected kindness. And even Mrs. Elwood, pained and annoyed as she was by the part taken by Gaut Gurley, whose only motive she believed was to gain some advantage for meditated evil, entered cheerfully into the affair, and joined her husband in handsome expressions of acknowledgment to the hunter, and assurances of doing their best to provide properly for the company. The matter was therefore considered as settled; and the hunter departed, to call, as he had proposed, early the next morning for Claud, for an excursion up the lake, to procure fresh provisions for the coming occasion.
The family were early astir the next morning, intent on their respective duties in preparation for the appointed logging bee. They had scarcely dispatched their breakfast, before the hunter, as he had promised, called for Claud; when the two departed together, with their guns and fishing gear, for the lake, whither we propose to accompany them.
"Well, now, let us settle the order of the day," said Phillips, after they had reached the landing and deposited their luggage in the canoe selected for the purpose.
"I am a companion of the voyage, to-day, and, as you know, but a learner in these sports," responded Claud. "You have but to name your plan."
"Well, my plan is this: to steer across and get up the lake to the inlet and rapids which connect this to the next upper lake, called by the Indians the Molechunk-a-munk; up these rapids into that lake, where we will take a row of a few hours, and home again by nightfall. In these rapids, going or returning, we may safely count, at this season, on a plenty of trout; and, on the borders of the lake beyond, I know of several favorite haunts of the deer, one of which I propose to take into the canoe as ballast to steady it for running the rapids, on our way back."
"What is the whole distance?"
"Four or five miles of this lake, as many of the river or rapids, and as far into the upper lake as we please."