Henry had a young Indian friend whose name was Keketaw. One day Keketaw said to him, "Let us go into the woods and make a canoe."
"If we had an ax to cut down the trees," said the white boy, "or an adz, such as they have at Jamestown, or if we could get a hatchet, we might make a canoe; but we have not even a little knife."
"We will make a canoe in the Indian way," said Keketaw. "I will show you how. Let us get ready."
"What shall we do to get ready?" asked Henry.
"We must take our bows, and we must make many arrows, so as to get something to eat, and we must have fishing lines," said Keketaw, "or we shall not be able to live in the woods."
For some days the two boys were getting ready. It took them a long time to scrape a piece of bone into a fishhook by means of a beaver's tooth set in a stick, but they made three of these hooks. They made some more hooks not so good as these by tying a splinter of bone to a little stick. Keketaw's mother made fishing lines for them. She took the long leaves of the plant which we call Spanish bayonet, and separated these threads into a hard cord, rubbing them between her hand and her knee.
"We must have swords," said Keketaw.
"We can cut our meat with this," said Henry, pointing to a knife made of cane, such as the Indians called a pamesack.
"But the Monacans may come," said Keketaw. "If we should see one sticking up his head, I should want a sword to fight him with; and if we should kill him, we could cut off his scalp with it;" and Keketaw's eyes glistened a little at the thought of fetching home a Monacan's scalp.
The Monacans were fierce Indians of a tribe living in the country west of the Powhatan Indians. They were deadly enemies of Keketaw's tribe.