In the little crowd which watched the embarkation was Hank Rathbone, an old hunter and pioneer, who made several good suggestions about their method of loading the boat.
“But where’s your stove?” he asked.
“Stove?” said Bob. “We can’t take a stove in this thing. There’s a big old fire-place in the house that’ll do to cook by.”
“But hot weather’s comin’ soon,” said old Hank, “and then you’ll want to cook out in the air, I reckon. Besides, it takes a power of wood for a fire-place. If one of you will come along with me to the tin-shop, I’ll have a stove made for you, of the best paytent-right sort, that’ll go into a skiff, and that won’t weigh more’n three or four pounds and won’t cost but about two bits.”
Jack readily agreed to buy as good a thing as a stove for twenty-five cents, and so he went with Hank Rathbone to the tin-shop, stopping to get some iron on the way. Two half-inch round rods of iron five feet long were cut and sharpened at each end. Then the ends were turned down so as to make on each rod two pointed legs of eighteen inches in length, and thus leave two feet of the rod for a horizontal piece.
“Now,” said the old hunter, “you drive about six inches of each leg into the ground, and stand them about a foot apart. Now for a top.”
OLD HANK’S PLAN FOR A STOVE
For this he had a piece of sheet-iron cut out two feet long and fourteen inches wide, with a round kettle-hole near one end. The edges of the long sides of the sheet-iron were bent down to fit over the rods.