Then Pete stepped forward and drew careful aim on the edge of the tiny target. His first shot missed by the merest fraction, and he turned toward his audience and smiled. The second bullet cut the card squarely in the middle, and he was roundly cheered by the impartial company. His final shot clipped the top. Pete laughed and shook his head. Ben had bested him.
“Eyes too old, maybe,” he said, modestly, as victor and vanquished clasped hands.
“Not a bit of it,” said the guide, gallantly. “It just happened that I had a little better luck. It might come out just the other way another time.”
Ben then fastened one of the small bits of cardboard on a tree, and, placing his rifle upside down on top of his head, he sent a bullet through the center.
“You’ll have to join a show, if you keep that up,” Bill laughed.
The boys asked Pete to tell them more about the Indians, but could not induce him to talk. They finally appealed to Ben.
“Tell you what to do, Pete,” he said; “show these fellows how to build a wigwam.”
The old Indian smiled at his friend, and, taking up his ax strode from the cabin, followed by Ed and George. Once outside, he quickly selected and cut three straight saplings. Trimming off the branches, he placed the poles on the ground with their tops together. Deftly twisting a strip of bark, he made it into a rope and fastened the ends of the poles one to the other. Then he raised them. He stood other poles between, forcing the tops beneath the bark rope, and soon had the framework of the wigwam completed. The foot of each pole was thrust into the ground to prevent the abode from tumbling down in a high wind. Pete left an open space in front for a doorway. In place of the birch-bark, which he explained was generally used by his people for the same purpose, he took a blanket and wrapped it about the bare poles to make a shelter. At the top of the wigwam he left an opening to let the smoke out. He explained that a covering was always provided for this opening, to keep out rain or snow.
Indian Pete also showed them many simple signs used by his people to communicate with one another when traveling through the forest. He showed how to turn a twig, or branch, so that it would point in the direction taken by the one who had left the signal. The Indian also showed how, by breaking a stick into long or short pieces, he could advise his followers as to the length of journey he had undertaken. He cut a piece of bark from a tree-trunk and made many queer drawings on it. These were carefully explained to the boys, so that they could read the Indian message it contained. They also had explained to them the art of making bows and arrows, the scraping and tanning of furs and skins, and other bits of woodcraft, and half the day was gone before they realized it.
Ben had meanwhile placed the turkey in the oven to warm.